Everyday Competence in Old and Very Old Age: An Inter-disciplinary Perspective

425

370

This study documents age trends, interrelations, and correlates of intellectual abilities in old and very old age (70-103 years) from the Berlin Aging Study (N = 516). Fourteen tests were used to assess 5 abilities: reasoning, memory, and perceptual speed from the mechanic (broad fluid) domain and knowledge and fluency from the pragmatic (broad crystallized) domain. Intellectual abilities had negative linear age relations, with more pronounced age reductions in mechanic than in pragmatic abilities. Interrelations among intellectual abilities were highly positive and did not follow the mechanic-pragmatic distinction. Sociobiographical indicators were less closely linked to intellectual functioning than sensory-sensorimotor variables, which predicted 59% of the total reliable variance in general intelligence. Results suggest that aging-induced biological factors are a prominent source of individual differences in intelligence in old and very old age.This article provides the first comprehensive overview summary regarding the structure and correlates of intellectual functioning as they were observed in the full sample of the intensive data protocol of the Berlin Aging Study (BASE; N = 516, mean age ---85 years, and age range = 70-103 years), an ongoing multidisciplinary and longitudinal study of old age and aging. To some degree, the present analysis replicates and extends two earlier articles that were based on an initial subset of BASE research participants (N =

supporting

confidence: 51%

Intellectual functioning in old and very old age: Cross-sectional results from the Berlin Aging Study.

Lindenberger¹,

Baltes²

1997

425

370

“…On the one hand, because typical measures of everyday functioning (e.g., Lawton & Brody, 1969) often are themselves fairly well structured and context invariant representing basic competence (M. M. Baltes, Mayr, Borchelt, Maas, & Wilms, 1993;Marsiske, Klumb, & Baltes, 1997), one might argue that measures that capture affective and social context of everyday life would add little to predicting such outcomes. On the other hand, to the extent that ill-defined measures also capture the preferences and motivations that guide real-world decision making, such measures might actually enhance predictions.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Well- and ill-defined measures of everyday cognition: Relationship to older adults' intellectual ability and functional status.

Allaire

Marsiske

2002

111

135

The present study examined 2 approaches to the measurement of everyday cognition in older adults. Measures differing in the degree of structure offered for solving problems in the domains of medication use, financial management, and food preparation and nutrition were administered to a sample of 130 community-dwelling older adults ranging in age from 60 to 90 (M ϭ 73 years, SD ϭ 7.02 years). Well-defined and ill-defined everyday problem-solving measures, which varied in the amount of means-end-related information provided to participants, were used. The study found that (a) well-and ill-defined measures were moderately interrelated, (b) the 2 approaches were differentially related to basic cognitive abilities, and (c) together the 2 approaches explained over half of the variance in older adults' everyday instrumental functioning and were in fact better predictors of everyday functioning than traditional psychometric cognitive measures. Discussion focuses on the differential importance of both methods for assessing older adults' everyday cognitive functioning.Over the past 20 years, a growing focus of gerontological and psychological research has been on the examination of older adults' everyday cognitive functioning. The underlying motivation for this field of inquiry has been the concern that psychometric measures of cognition may not appropriately capture real-world cognitive functioning in older adults (

“…Although several researchers have proposed such taxonomies (e.g., M. E. Ford & Nichols, 1988;Schaie, 1978;Willis & Schaie, 1993), little progress has been made in adapting them for use across the life span or for integrating discrepant research findings. From the results of this study alone, and from the literature reviewed, it seems that tasks could be classified within a number of dimensions, including (a) age relevance (e.g., Cornelius, 1984), (b) cognitive demands (e.g., Marsiske & Willis, in press;Salthouse, 1993), (c) noncognitive demands (e.g., Labouvie-Vief, 1982;Staudinger et al, 1995), (d) problem domain (e.g., Ericsson & Smith, 1991;Salthouse, 1990), (e) task criticality (e.g., M. M. Baltes, Mayr, Borchelt, Maas, & Wilms, 1993;Willis, 1991), (f) task novelty (e.g., Berg & Sternberg, 1985;Cornelius, 1984), and (g) ill-versus well-structured tasks (e.g., Wagner, 1986). There has been substantial scholarship about each of these issues, and every problemsolving task can be classified with regard to each dimension.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Dimensionality of everyday problem solving in older adults.

Marsiske¹,

Willis²

1995

110

124

This study investigated individual differences in older adults' everyday problem-solving performance using 3 instruments. Past research, typically using only single measures, has yielded a multitude of findings regarding age effects in everyday problem solving. The present sample consisted of 111 older adults (44 men, 67 women) who ranged in age from 68 to 94 years. Confirmatory factor analyses revealed that, within each of the 3 instruments, subscales representing particular content domains could be reliably identified. There was, however, little relation between the different instruments, and the measures also differed in their relation with chronological age. These results support the view that everyday problem-solving competence is a multidimensional construct, of which previous investigations may only have studied particular dimensions.The goal of this study was to investigate how older adults' performance on everyday problem-solving tasks varies across methods of assessment. An increasing number of studies have focused on older adults' functioning on cognitive tasks of daily living (Hess, 1990;Poon, Rubin, & Wilson, 1989;Rogoff & Lave, 1984;Sinnott, 1989;Sinnott & Cavanaugh, 1991; Sternberg & Wagner, 1986), but most studies have considered performance only in delimited task domains, using single measures of performance. In addition, there has been little theoretical or empirical integration across studies of adult everyday problem solving. Several reasons exist for this. First, as a clearly identifiable subfield of inquiry, research into the everyday cognition of older adults is relatively new (Woodruff-Pak, 1989). Second, little consensus has been reached on what the defining task properties of everyday cognition might be and what the best methods for assessing these properties are. Indeed, even a standard nomenclature for distinguishing everyday cognition from other kinds of cognition does not yet exist; terms such as practical problem solving (Denney, 1989), everyday problem solving (Cornelius & Caspi, 1987), everyday cognition (Poon et al., 1989), pragmatics of intelligence (P. B. Baltes, 1987), and practical intelligence (Sternberg & Wagner, 1986), among others, have all been used. This diversity of labels, not surprisingly, reflects the even larger diversity of approaches that have evolved for the measurement of these constructs.Copyright 1995 by the American Psychological Association, Inc.Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed Sherry L. Willis, Department of Human Development and Family Studies, S-110 Henderson Building, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, Pennsylvania 16802, or Michael Marsiske, Max Planck Institute for Human Development and Education, Lentzeallee 94, 14195 Berlin, Germany. After July 31, 1995, Michael Marsiske's address will be the Institute for Gerontology, Wayne State University, 87 East Ferry Street, 226 Knapp Building, Detroit, Michigan 48202. Electronic mail should be sent via Internet to slw@psuvm.psu.edu or to marsiske@geroserver.iog...