| Course | PS 105 Developmental Psychology |
|---|---|
| Unit | Unit 7 |
| Paper type | Adulthood and aging paper |
| Length | About 1,010 words, 6 pages |
| Format | APA 7 student paper |
| School | Herzing University |
| Program | BS in Psychology |
| Updated | October 2026 |
Free sample paper for PS 105 Unit 7
Does Retiring Dull the Mind? Cognition After Sixty in Studies Built on Older Adults, and Why Cross-Sectional and Longitudinal Designs Disagree About When Decline Begins
Student Name
Psychology, Herzing University
PS 105: Developmental Psychology
Instructor Name
April 27, 2026
Does Retiring Dull the Mind? Cognition After Sixty in Studies Built on Older Adults, and Why Cross-Sectional and Longitudinal Designs Disagree About When Decline Begins
What the Course Frameworks Say About Later Life
The frameworks this course started with say little about the years after sixty. Freud and Piaget stop well before adulthood. Erikson (1950) assigns old age one stage, integrity versus despair, in which a person looks back on life and comes either to accept it or to regret it, and he describes it in a few pages. The life-span perspective of Baltes (1987) treats later life more fully, emphasizing that it involves both gains and losses and that people retain some capacity to change. Neither framework says much about a specific question many people approaching retirement ask: whether stopping work will speed up the mental decline they expect with age. Answering that question requires research built on older adults themselves.
Two Questions Inside One
The question has two parts. The first is when, and how much, thinking abilities change with age in the first place. The second is whether retirement changes that course. Both depend heavily on study design, which is why this paper names the design of every study it reports.
When Does Decline Begin? Two Designs, Two Answers
A cross-sectional study compares people of different ages at one time. A longitudinal study follows the same people as they age. The two designs often give different answers about cognitive aging.
Schaie (1994) summarized the Seattle Longitudinal Study, which has followed thousands of adults since 1956, testing them every seven years and adding new samples over time. In the longitudinal data, most measured abilities were fairly stable through middle age, with reliable declines for most people appearing in the sixties and becoming larger after the mid-seventies. Cross-sectional comparisons in the same project suggested earlier and steeper declines. Schaie attributed much of the difference to cohort effects: people born later had more education and better health, so in a cross-sectional study older people look worse partly because they grew up in different conditions, not only because they are older.
Salthouse (2009) argued the opposite concern. Longitudinal studies, he pointed out, can underestimate decline because people improve when they take the same tests repeatedly, and because those who drop out of long studies tend to be those who are declining. Analyzing his own data, he concluded that some abilities, such as reasoning and processing speed, begin to decline in healthy, educated adults much earlier than many longitudinal studies suggest, while knowledge such as vocabulary continues to grow into the sixties.
Does Retirement Change the Course?
Rohwedder and Willis (2010) asked whether retiring affects memory in people in their early sixties. A simple comparison of retirees and workers at the same age would be misleading, because people whose memory is already slipping may be more likely to retire. To get around that, they compared countries whose pension and tax rules encourage retirement at different ages, using surveys of older adults in the United States, England and several European countries. In countries where people retired earlier, memory scores in the early sixties were lower, and the authors interpreted this as evidence that retirement itself contributes to cognitive decline, an effect they called mental retirement.
The design is clever but not an experiment. Countries differ in many ways besides pension rules, and the interpretation depends on the assumption that those rules affect memory only through the timing of retirement. Other researchers using different methods have reported weaker or mixed effects, so the finding is best treated as suggestive.
Even if retirement does affect memory, the research leaves open why. Work may exercise memory and reasoning through daily problem solving; it may also provide social contact, structure and physical activity, any of which could matter. If the active ingredient is mental challenge, a retiree who takes up demanding volunteer work or study might show no effect at all. If it is social contact, the same might be true of an active social life. The cross-national comparison cannot separate these possibilities, because it measures retirement as a single event rather than as a change in many parts of daily life at once.
What the Research Supports
| Claim | Support |
|---|---|
| Some thinking abilities change with age, and some do not | Well supported across designs |
| Knowledge such as vocabulary holds or grows into the sixties | Well supported |
| Declines in reasoning and speed begin at a precise age | Contested; the answer depends on design |
| Later cohorts perform better at the same age than earlier cohorts | Supported by long-running longitudinal data |
| Retiring causes faster cognitive decline | Suggestive cross-national evidence; not settled |
Why Cohort Effects Matter for Today's Retirees
The cohort effects Schaie (1994) reported have a practical meaning. People retiring in the mid-2020s were born in the late 1950s and early 1960s, and on average they had more years of schooling, different kinds of work and different health care across their lives than people who retired a generation earlier. Findings from older cohorts may therefore overstate how much today's retirees will decline at the same ages. The reverse is also possible for some abilities, if changes in work or daily life reduce the practice certain skills receive. Either way, research on aging describes particular generations in particular times, and its numbers need updating as each new cohort reaches later life. This is one of the strongest reasons the life-span perspective treats historical influences as part of development rather than as background.
Bringing the Frameworks Back In
The research fits the life-span perspective better than the classical stages. Baltes (1987) predicted multidirectional change, and the evidence shows exactly that: some abilities decline while knowledge grows, and the timing depends on history as well as age. The retirement research also fits his emphasis on historical and social influences, since pension policy is a social arrangement, not a biological stage. Erikson's integrity stage addresses something the cognitive research does not measure at all, how people evaluate the life they have lived, which is a reminder that the question chosen here is only one of several that later life raises.
Limits
The studies reported here mostly tested people in wealthy countries, often with more education than average, and they measured abilities with standardized tests that capture only part of everyday thinking. None of them can tell an individual approaching retirement what will happen to their own memory, and this paper should not be read as advice about when to retire.
References
Baltes, P. B. (1987). Theoretical propositions of life-span developmental psychology: On the dynamics between growth and decline. Developmental Psychology, 23(5), 611-626. https://doi.org/10.1037/0012-1649.23.5.611
Erikson, E. H. (1950). Childhood and society. Norton.
Rohwedder, S., & Willis, R. J. (2010). Mental retirement. Journal of Economic Perspectives, 24(1), 119-138. https://doi.org/10.1257/jep.24.1.119
Salthouse, T. A. (2009). When does age-related cognitive decline begin? Neurobiology of Aging, 30(4), 507-514. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neurobiolaging.2008.09.023
Schaie, K. W. (1994). The course of adult intellectual development. American Psychologist, 49(4), 304-313. https://doi.org/10.1037/0003-066X.49.4.304
The Herzing PS 105 Unit 7 instructions
The seventh PS 105 unit asks students to write about adulthood and aging by choosing a question rather than surveying decades. Expect to report what the course frameworks say about later life, including how briefly some say it, then select a question about cognition, relationships, work and retirement, or how people evaluate a life. Research should come from studies designed on older adults, with designs named, because cross-sectional and longitudinal studies answer different questions and can disagree. If the frameworks barely cover old age, say so and rely on the research. Writing about an older relative shares their private circumstances, so a general question or composite example is better.
How this PS 105 Unit 7 example is built
Opening with what Erikson and Baltes say about later life, the sample explains why a specific question needs research on older adults. The question is divided into when decline begins and whether retirement changes it. A design section explains cross-sectional and longitudinal studies, then reports Schaie's longitudinal findings and cohort explanation alongside Salthouse's concerns about practice and dropout. The retirement section explains the cross-national design of Rohwedder and Willis, its assumption and possible mechanisms. A table grades five claims by support. Sections on cohort effects for today's retirees and on the frameworks follow, and the close states limits and declines to give retirement advice. Each study is introduced by its design before its result appears.
Where the points sit in the PS 105 Unit 7 rubric
Herzing's rubric for the adulthood and aging paper usually weighs an accurate account of what frameworks say about later life, a focused question, research built on older adults, attention to study design, a careful conclusion and clear writing. The frameworks criterion earns credit when coverage gaps are reported honestly. Focus scores when a single question organizes the paper. Research earns points when drawn from older samples rather than extrapolated. Design is often weighted most heavily in this unit, rewarding students who explain why cross-sectional and longitudinal findings differ. Conclusions score when they distinguish settled findings from suggestive ones and avoid advice. Naming possible mechanisms without claiming to have shown them is usually credited.
PS 105 Unit 7 help: mistakes that cost points
Aging papers lose points when they survey all of adulthood instead of answering one question. Another frequent mistake is treating cross-sectional age differences as if they showed individual decline. Students often cite studies of young adults and extrapolate to older ones. Some present suggestive findings, such as retirement effects, as settled. Others ignore cohort effects entirely. Many apply a framework that barely covers old age without saying how little it says. A relative's health story does not belong in the paper. If design questions feel confusing, our writers can help you build a focused aging paper around one question. Treating a clever natural comparison as if it were an experiment is a subtler slip.
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Put the Unit 7 instructions in front of us with your PS 105 rubric and the question your section sets on adulthood or later life. We write a custom example that reports the frameworks at their real thickness, uses research designed on older adults, names every design and treats variation as a finding. First custom sample free, back in 24 to 48 hours.
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PS 105 Unit 7 questions, answered
What if the framework barely covers old age?
Say so, and make that part of the paper. Several classical accounts were developed from work with children and extended upward with much less detail, and reporting that honestly is a stronger move than inflating a short final stage. Then bring in research designed for these years to answer what the framework cannot, and cite it properly.
Why does study design matter so much in this unit?
Because two designs answer different questions about age. Comparing people of different ages at one moment shows differences that may come from the times they lived through rather than from growing older, while following the same people over years separates those. Name which design produced each finding and let the wording follow, since that distinction is often an explicit criterion here.
Can I write about an older relative for this paper?
Their health is not coursework material. A parent's or grandparent's memory, mobility, diagnoses and care arrangements are private to them, they are identifiable in anything you write, and clinical or facility records about them are protected documents. Construct a composite older adult from what the literature describes, label it, and keep the conclusions attached to the research.
Where can I find a free PS 105 Unit 7 sample paper?
Free to read in full, the PS 105 Unit 7 adulthood and aging paper includes the design comparison, the retirement evidence, the claims table and margin notes. Choosing a different question? Send the instructions and a paper on it is written for you free, often within two days.
Why does study design matter so much in PS 105 Unit 7?
Because cross-sectional studies compare different generations while longitudinal studies follow the same people. The sample shows the two designs disagreeing about when cognitive decline begins and explains why.