Phenomenological Structuring of the Adult Lifespan as a Function of Age and Sex

Abstract

In this study of people ranging from six to over sixty-five years of age, a high frequency of animistic responses was found in all ages examined. While a significant age effect was noted in the ability to categorize animate objects accurately, animistic responding was generally unrelated to logical classification ability or to analytic cognitive style. For eleven- to thirteen-year-olds, however, a significant relationship between animism and both cognitive style and classification ability existed. An interpretation of the results which found high levels of animistic thinking beyond adolescence does not support Piagetian theory. Rather, adults may respond animistically because of emotional attachments which they have formed to a certain meaningful physical objects.

Memory-based judgments about multiple categories: A revision and extension of Tajfel's accentuation theory.

“…The closest social analog to the present study is age. It is a continuous variable, along which both laypeople and professional lifespan psychologists superimpose multiple age-group categories (e.g., Kogan, 1979; Shanan & Kedar, 1979). The arbitrariness of the boundaries is apparent from the lack of consensus regarding their number and location and the preponderance of boundaries at the juncture or the middle of decades.…”