Reference no: EM133263858

Summary for the following content about the personality of older adults?

1. Possible Selves Theory The possible selves model proposes that the individual's view of the self, or self-schema, guides the choice and pursuit of future endeavors (Markus & Nurius, 1986). The possible self means literally just that: what are you now, and what could you be in the future? These thoughts about the self can motivate you to act in certain ways so that you achieve your ''hoped-for'' possible self, or the person you would like to be. These self-conceptions about the person you will be in the future continue to shift as you develop throughout adulthood. People can remain hopeful of change until well into their later years (Smith & Freund, 2002). Increasingly important as you get older is your health-related possible self, meaning your hope that youwill remain in good shape and free of disease (Frazier et al., 2002). A dreaded possible self is the opposite of the hoped-for possible self. With regard to health, most people would rather not become ill and so they will take action to avoid that outcome. According to possible selves theory, people are motivated to strive for a hoped-for possible self and will attempt to avoid a dreaded or feared possible self. To the extent that they are successful in this process, positive feelings of life satisfaction are theorized to emerge. People think of themselves in a negative light and view their lives negatively when they are unable to realize a hoped-for possible self or to avoid the dreaded possible self. For instance, you probably feel better when your grades confirm your possible self as a good student and study harder to avoid the dreaded self of a person who fails out of college. However, people have ways to protect themselves from these negative self-evaluations. One tactic is to revise the possible self to avoid future disappointment and frustration if experiences suggest that the possible self may not be achievable. You may realize that you will not be a straight A student if your grades include a mix of As and Bs (or lower grades), so you revise your possible self accordingly. You will probably feel better about yourself in the long run if you do so even though you may continue to strive for good grades. A similar process seems to be at play for older adults. In one study, those older adults who underestimated their future selves (in both the physical and social domains) had higher well-being a year later than those who overestimated their future selves (Cheng et al., 2009). By lowering their expectations, they evaluated more positively the outcomes they did achieve.

2. Coping and Control

dult development researchers are interested in the field of aging and sense of personal control in part, based on a popular belief that adults undergo a loss of the feeling that they control what happens to them as they with age. Studies carried out within the National Survey of Midlife Development in the United States (MIDUS) showed that contrary to the popular myth, older adults retain the feeling of being in control of their lives despite being aware of the constraints they may encounter. They do so by viewing their resources and potential positively rather than focusing on losses (Plaut et al., 2003). The cognitive approach to stress emphasizes the role of perceptions as determining whether an event will be viewed as a threat, which, in turn, determines whether it is viewed as stressful. The experience of stress occurs when you perceive that the situation overwhelms your ability to manage effectively in that situation. Coping refers to the actions people take to reduce stress. There are two main forms of coping. In problem-focused coping, people attempt to reduce their stress by changing something about the situation. Conversely, in emotion-focused coping, people attempt to reduce their stress by changing the ways they think about the situation. Other methods of coping fall in between these two, such as seeking social support, a coping method that involves both taking action (by talking to other people) and attempting to feel better (which may result from talking to other people). Another way to distinguish between the two types of coping is approach (problem-focused) and avoidance (emotion-focused). Cognitive theories of coping propose that the most effective coping strategy is one that matches the demands of the situation and its modifiability by actions the individual can take. If the situation is one that cannot be changed, people only become more stressed if they keep trying to use problem-focused coping, particularly as their efforts deplete their coping resources. For situations that can be changed, however, using emotion-focused coping would mean that you fail to take advantage of steps to improve the situation that would cause it to be less of a problem in the future. For example, if you have a number of pressing deadlines, simply wishing they would go away will not be an effective means of coping because by missing the deadlines, you create further problems for yourself. When you cope successfully with a stressful situation, your mood improves and you have a higher sense of well-being. The process seems to be reciprocal-people who feel better also cope more successfully. One longitudinal investigation of coping in midlife adults followed over a 10-year period found that people who were less depressed are more likely to resolve problematic situations successfully (Lachman et al., 2009). Some people seem to be characteristically better able to cope with challenging life events. These are the individuals said to be high in resilience or the ability to recover from stress. Resilient older adults are able to overcome negative emotions and adapt to new situations as these arise, even if those situations are objectively stressful (Ong et al., 2006). Social support and personality appear to play a role in promoting resilience (Montpetit et al., 2010). Belief in their own coping resources, furthermore, can help older individuals approach stressful situations in a more effective manner (Trouillet et al., 2009). These resilient individuals can take charge of potentially stressful situations before they become problem, leading to fewer health-related stressful situations (Fiksenbaum et al., 2006). Finally, religion can also serve as an important coping resource for promoting resilience in older adults (Van Ness & Larson, 2002). Although some discussions of coping in later life regard older adults as passive rather than active copers, it is not necessarily given that as people get older they adopt a fatalistic approach to managing their fortunes or that they become ineffective copers. A study of the victims of the 2005 Hurricane Katrina that devastated New Orleans showed that older and younger adults were equally effective in engaging in coping strategies to manage their responses to the disaster (Cherry et al., 2009).