1.
Achieving stage: The point reached by young adults in which intelligence is applied to specific situations involving the attainment of long-term goals regarding careers, family, and social contributions.
2.
Acquisitive stage: Encompasses all of childhood and adolescence, and the main developmental task is to acquire information.
3.
Atherosclerosis: The most common form of CVD; a disease characterized by plaques along the inner walls of the arteries.
4.
Basal Metabolic Rate: The amount of energy the body uses at complete rest.
5.
Biological aging, or senescence: Genetically influenced, age-related declines in the functioning of organs and systems that are universal in all members of our species.
6.
Body Mass Index: A ration that allows you to asses your body size in relation to your height and weight.
7.
Cancer: Any malignant growth or tumor caused by abnormal and uncontrolled cell division.
8.
Creativity: The ability to produce work that is original yet appropriate-something that others have not thought of that is useful in some way.
9.
Cross-Linkage Theory of Aging: With age some body proteins become cross-linked and may impede metabolic processes.
10.
Cumulative Effects of Aging: The negative effects of the process of glycation on proteins may be a major contributor to age changes. Suggests that glucose acts a mediator of aging. That the changes happen as the glycation accumulates.
11.
Dualistic: In Perry's theory, the cognitive approach typical of younger college students, who divide information, values and authority into right and wrong, good and bad, we and they.
12.
Executive stage: The period in the middle adulthood when people take a broader perspective than earlier, including concerns about the world.
13.
Expertise: Acquisition of extensive knowledge in a field or endeavor.
14.
Fantasy Period: Period of vocational development in which children gain insight into career options by fantasizing about them.
15.
Free Radicals: Naturally occurring, highly reactive chemicals that form in the presence of oxygen and destroy nearby cellular material, including DNA, proteins and fats essential for cell functioning. Believed to be involved in many disorders of aging.
16.
Hypertension: A common disorder in which blood pressure remains abnormally high (a reading of 140/90 mm Hg or greater).
17.
Postconventional Level of Moral Reasoning: Kohlberg's highest level of moral development, in which individuals define morality in terms of abstract principles and values that apply to all situations and societies.
18.
Postformal Operational thought: Study by Arlin stating (a) awareness of the relativistic nature of knowledge, (b) acceptance of contradiction, and (c) integration of contradiction into the dialectical whole.
19.
Postformal thought: Cognitive development beyond Piaget's formal operational stage.
20.
Pragmatic thought: In Labouvie-Vief's theory, a structural advance in thinking in adulthood, characterized by the use of logic as a tool for solving real world problems and by the acceptance of contradiction as part of existence.
21.
Premenstrual Syndrome: An array of physical and psychological symptoms that usually appear 6 to 10 days prior to menstruation. The most common are abdominal cramps, fluid retention, diarrhea, tender breasts, backache, fatigue, tension, irritability and depression.
22.
Presbyopia: A condition of aging in which, around 60, the lens of the eye loses its capacity to adjust to objects at varying distances.
23.
Programmed Effects of Aging: Suggests that aging may be a result of an impairment of the cell in translating necessary RNAs as a result of increased turnoffs of DNA.
24.
Realistic period: Period of vocational development in which older adolescents and young adult narrow their vocational options, engaging in further exploration before focusing on a general vocational category and, slightly later, settling on a single occupation.
25.
Reintegrative stage: The period of late adulthood during which the focus is on tasks that have personal meaning.
26.
Relativistic thinking: In Perry's theory, the cognitive approach typical of older college students, who view all knowledge as embedded in a framework of thought and, therefore, give up the possibility of absolute truth in favor of multiple truths, each relative to its context.
27.
Responsibility Stage: Stage of middle adulthood concerned with real-life problems and with being in charge of self and others.
28.
Tentative period: Period of vocational development in which adolescents think about careers in more complex ways, at first in terms of their interests and soon- as they become more aware of personal and educational requirements for different vocations- in terms of their abilities and values.
