Tenacious goal pursuit and flexible goal adjustment: explication and age-related analysis of assimilative and accommodative strategies of coping

Crises and critical life transitions activate 2 distinct but complementary modes of coping, (a) transforming developmental circumstances in accordance with personal preferences (assimilative tendency) and (b) adjusting personal preferences to situational constraints (accommodative tendency). Assimilative and accommodative tendencies were measured by a questionnaire comprising 2 independent scales (Tenacious Goal Pursuit and Flexible Goal Adjustment). Both scales predict high life satisfaction and low depression and are positively related to generalized internal control beliefs. The scales evinced an opposite relation to age: Cross-sectional analyses on a sample of 890 Ss in the age range from 34 to 63 years revealed a gradual shift from an assimilative to an accommodative mode of coping. Implications for theories of depression and successful aging are discussed.     

Dissociations between procedural and episodic memory: effects of time and aging

The issue of multiple memory systems is explored. Young and older adults (mean ages = 20 and 71, respectively) named pictures and were tested immediately, 1, 7, or 21 days later. Episodic memory (recognition) for pictures was significantly lower in older relative to young adults and declined systematically across all retention intervals in both age groups. In contrast, procedural memory (repetition priming in picture naming) revealed no reliable age differences. In both age groups, priming declined within the first 24 hr, but unlike recognition, there was no further decrement from 1 to 21 days. There were also within-subject dissociations: The magnitude of priming was equivalent for remembered and forgotten items, and the relation between recognition and priming across intervals was nonmonotic, revealing a reversed association. The findings were interpreted within a multiple-memory-systems framework.     

Training effects on Raven's progressive matrices in young, middle-aged, and elderly adults

Previous training studies of fluid intellectual abilities have involved training on either figural relations or induction tasks. In the present study, young, middle-aged, and elderly adults were given training on another measure of fluid ability--Raven's Progressive Matrices. The training involved a strategy-modeling technique that lasted no more than a few minutes. The results indicated that (a) performance on the Raven decreased with increasing age, (b) training significantly improved performance, and (c) the effect of training did not differ as a function of the age or sex of the subjects. Thus, the results indicate that performance on the Raven can be significantly improved in a single, brief training session.     

Validity of the Sheltered Care Environment Scale: conceptual and methodological issues

The Sheltered Care Environment Scale (SCES) was developed primarily to measure social climate as an attribute of a setting. As such, the SCES was designed to maximize differences between facilities and minimize differences among individuals within a setting. However, Smith and Whitbourne (1990) assessed the validity of the SCES as a measure of individual differences in perceptions of a shared environment. Moreover, they redefined the content coverage of 2 of the SCES subscales (Independence and Physical Comfort), to encompass attributes the SCES is not intended to measure. In general, preliminary evidence indicates that the SCES subscales provide reasonably reliable and valid indices of the social climate of group residential facilities.     

Retrospective assessment of marital adjustment and depression during the first 2 years of spousal bereavement

Two hundred twelve bereaved elders rated marital adjustment using items drawn from the Locke and Wallace (1959) Marital Adjustment Test and completed the Beck Depression Inventory 2 months, 12 months, and 30 months after the loss of their spouses. Their responses were compared with those of 162 nonbereaved individuals of comparable age who were tested at the same times. More positive ratings of marital adjustment were made by bereaved subjects than by nonbereaved subjects. Among nonbereaved elders, more severe ratings of depression were associated with lower ratings of marital adjustment. In the bereaved sample, however, the opposite was found: More severe ratings of depression were associated with higher ratings of marital adjustment. This pattern of results changed only slightly over the 2.5-year course of bereavement and was not influenced by gender. These results are discussed in terms of cognitive processes (e.g., idealization) that influence retrospective assessments of marital adjustment during bereavement.