Life-span Developmental Psychology

Life-Span Developmental Psychology: Historical and Generational Effects provides theoretical and methodological frameworks and examples in history-graded influences on life-span development. The book is a compilation of select research papers by sociologists and psychologists in the study of the biological and environmental determinants of development. The topics discussed in the text include the historical and cohort effects; the aims, methods, and problems of research on historical constancy and change; the relationships between history-graded events and normative age-graded (ontogenetic) events; and the investigation of the developing individual in a changing world. Empirical samples of history-graded influence studies of various age cohorts from the United States and other countries are presented as well. Psychologists and sociologists will find the book very insightful.

Contributors

Preface

Acknowledgments

1. Historical Time and Cohort Effects

Introduction

Historical Time and Cohort Effects in Psychological Data

The Concepts of Cohort and Period Revisited

How Do We Measure Historical Time?

Implications for the Estimation of Age, Cohort, and Period Effects

Summary and Conclusions

References

2. Dimensions of Historical Constancy and Change

Introduction

Dimensions of Life Events

The New Madrid Earthquake

Methods of Study

Examples

Conclusions

References

3. The Individual as Consumer and Producer of Historical Change

Introduction

A Framework for Discussion

The Observer Outside the Observed System

The Observer Is Part of the System

The Observed Individual's Reflections on History

Evaluating Our Discipline against the System of Relationships

Conclusion

References

4. Simulation of Cultural Change by Cross-Cultural Research: Some Metamethodological Considerations

Introduction

Cross-Cultural Simulation of Sociocultural Change within Life-Span Developmental Psychology

Conclusion

References

5. Culture, Language, and Mature Rationality

Introduction

The Relativization of Cognitive Maturity

Philosophy and the Crisis of the Personal

The Reintegration of Individuality in Maturity

Conclusions

References

6. Social Change, World Views, and Cohort Succession: The United States in the 1980s

Introduction

Generational Discontinuities in Tunisia

The Transformations of Industrialism

A New Sense of Limits

Distrust of Institutional Leadership

Skepticism about Technology

Generational Shifts in World Views

The Rise of Environmentalism

References

7. Love, War, and the Life Cycle of the Family

Introduction

The Central Europeans

The Turks

The Persians

The North Africans

The Moslem Arabs

The Lessons of History

References

8. Hardship in Lives: Depression Influences from the 1930s to Old Age in Postwar America

Introduction

Linking Economic Events and Health

Depression Adversity in the Later Years

Hard Times and Health in the 1930s

Overview

References

9. Fatherhood: Historical and Contemporary Perspectives

Introduction

Theoretical Assumptions

In Search of a Baseline

A Portrait of Traditional Families

Unplanned and Planned Change: Effects on Fathering

Unplanned Changes in Fathering

Planned Change

Cultural Support Systems for Fathers and Families

Effects of Changes in Fathering on Children and Parents

Conclusions and Future Trends

References

10. Grandparenthood in Transition

Introduction

Position of the Aged in Traditional Societies

Changing Family Structure

Grandparenthood

Background

Methodology

Findings and Results

Discussion and Conclusions

References

Author Index

Subject Index