I need someone to write reaction paper

DEVELOPMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY 6

Developmental Psychology

Name of writer

Running head: DEVELOPMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY 1

Name of Institution

Introduction

As life progresses, the perceptions about own self for the elderly people become increasingly composite. Aged people have a tendency to become more positive about their experiences of life when it comes to self-evaluation. This is all because age is considered as the primary self-explaining fundamental factor and elders generally tend to feel at an average thirteen years younger than their actual age and the reason might be to avoid the negative traits associated with that of older ages and present themselves as ones that have not reached that phase of their life where they should be stereotyped negatively.

Recalling life events

Elder people tend to recall the happenings of their life and assess those events like how they spent their whole life, what were their good and bad experiences, what did they do right and where they were miserably wrong in dealing with the situations and setting priorities throughout their life. They consider themselves as experienced individuals and feel good and honored by narrating such stories and experiences to others so that they can get benefitted from their first-hand knowledge and don’t get with the flow of the society in pursuit of materialistic things. In addition to recalling life events, elder people also tend to have a habit of reviewing their past life which they consider a better means that provide them with increased self-understanding and associating some meaning to their life. Additionally, this life review helps them to accept their achievements/failures and also to accept others in a more acceptable manner (Kuther, 2018). This is exactly what has been explained in the text Tuesdays with Morrie where he recalled and narrated that in his entire past life where ever he went, he used to become greedy to get something new from his meetup with people, wanted to purchase a latest car, was hesitant to get hold of a precious property and latest piece of toy for his children and why people used to do that? It was not just the materialistic approach, Morrie thinks that it was in fact love what people find in these material things, they used to substitute love in these things to satisfy themselves as these things would never give anyone the calmness, care, and peace. Morrie is an aged character in the text who is ill and feels good to talk about and share his past life experiences with Mitch. He tries to make him understand that his life has given him a lesson through stated events that love is the most precious thing in this world which should not be compromised and substituted with anything especially with materialistic things as they would never be able to compensate love for them

Engagement with society

People in today’s world cannot think of living a life in isolation no matter in which age period they belong, however, the disengagement theory says that the tendency of narrowing down a social circle is something that is pretty evident from the life of people who are very old. This tendency is likely to happen as these people want to spend a silent life as the fear of death don’t let them interact much within their social circle. Another reason for this behavior of elder people is that society is not willing to give them the same vigilant role and responsibility assuming that they have become weaker, they have slow reflexes and they might end up doing something wrong. These factors when it comes into effect in accumulation, make elder people more isolated, pessimists and less proactive. They spend more of their time in reflection and thinking.

On the other hand, the activity theory supports the argument that elder people do engage themselves in other roles that helps them to remain active and busy. Many successful elder people in life don’t want to give up at this stage too. They actively seek ways to keep themselves engaged in different roles (Kuther, 2018). When we attempt to compare this behavior of elder people with that of Tuesdays with Morrie, then we can see that Morrie was one of those individuals who wanted to give something back to society in return for what he has learned from the experiences of his life.

He says that it is not the money that can be invested into others, it is in fact the time which is required, he further says that he was about to die, however, he feels good when he gives something to others. It not about the monetary things, not about his car, even not about giving his home to someone, it is all about his time, and when he is able to give his time to someone else, he feels that he was able to put a smile on someone’s face. By doing so he feels good as removed sadness from someone’s life. Such things that come from the heart never go in vain; in fact, you get loads of happiness in return.

Morrie is more into following the activity theory as explained in the said book which explains that elderly people tend to give back to society in return by assuming many other roles of their choices and the reason for this social interaction is that they want to remain social and active. Along with this they also want to become happy and being loved by other people at this stage of their life which itself is a difficult time to spend from a holistic point of view.

Friendship

During the elder part of life, people tend to rely more and more on friends as the importance of friendship becomes manifold for them. There are many reasons for their dependency in the older phase of their life which includes;

· People have more time to spend with their friends as they are free of their responsibilities of going to office and work etc. So, they have much time to spend playing, recreational activities and many other things with their friends

· They love to retain friendships with their oldest friends and go and recall their happenings of past lives which make them feel increasingly good

· They have set of friends on whom they have relied throughout their lives so, at this stage of their life, they feel comfortable to discuss their problems and issues instead of discussing it with someone other as they feel that those others might not be able to understand them well as their long-lasting friends.

· These friends are assets of their life as they share many similarities with them in terms of habits, thoughts, and beliefs.

· They think that their friends are the best source of emotional support for them as compared to someone else. Emotional support is considered as one of the highest requirements of elder people.

Now when it comes to lack of friendship and social contact at this stage of life, it impacts the physical health of elderly people in an adverse manner. People who do not have friends around them tend to feel more grieved as a result of a loss of any close relative and loved one. They become more exposed to the phases of anxiety as they find no shoulder to depend upon during these difficult times (Kuther, 2018). This explanation can be related to episode in Tuesdays with Morrie also as explained by Mitch. He says that everything in Morrie’s home remained the same over so many years, as he stopped purchasing anything new for himself except that it was filled with many other things like love, friendship, and family. Please add more one sentence

This explains that Morrie was more into retaining and flourishing his relationships with his friends. He knew the importance of his friends who were equally there to support him during these hard times of his illness, in fact, Morrie was making conscious efforts to spend more and more time with them that was making him more mentally relaxed and social (Albom, 2002).

Life is a complex subject and it's every phase has its own challenges and opportunities. A detailed explanation is given in the text on all these different stages of life of the book (Kuther, 2018). To be specific, issues, feeling, pattern of spending life, fears, and affections everything is discussed in detail here. Elderly people have to put in additional efforts than the young ones to cope up with their issues as they are comparatively weak both in terms of mental and physical strengths. Many elders act in different ways based on their beliefs and emotions etc., these behaviors include; need of friends and family members, concerns of good life, personality traits, finding ways to spend after retirement life, giving back to society, living in isolation, fear of death, impact of religion, need of social support and family support and effects of neighborhood, etc. All these factors do play a role in the lives of elderly people however, the severity of impact out of any of these vary from person to person.

Please add a paragraph reflects on how book has impacted your view on aging/the end of life

References Albom, M. (2002). Tuesdays with Morrie: An Old Man, a Young Man, and Life's Greatest Lesson, 20th Anniversary Edition. Paperback. Kuther, T. L. (2018). Lifespan development: Lives in context. SAGE Publications.