Adult Development & Aging [Hardcover]

William J Hoyer (Author), Paul A Roodin (Author), John Michael Rybash (Author), Paul Rybash (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 15, 2002 | ISBN-10: 0072564881 | ISBN-13: 978-0072564884 | Edition: 5

The fifth edition of Adult Development and Aging offers professors and students a clear, comprehensive and current account of the salient issues and concerns that dominate the field of Adult Development. After reading this text, students will have a keen understanding of where adult development and aging has been in the past, where it is right now, and where it will be headed in the future. In Adult Development and Aging, 5e authors William Hoyer and Paul Roodin combine their expertise in teaching and research to provide clear explanations of the awesome, complex unfolding of development during the adult years. The text presents findings derived from theories and ideas about understanding adulthood and aging in an interdisciplinary, process oriented perspective. Material is organized in terms of the biological, social and cultural contexts in which change occurs during the adult years. Information is presented in the context of young adults growing older in today’s world, informed by research and theory.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

John Santrock received his PH.D from the University of Minnesota in 1973. He has held teaching positions at the University of Charleston and the University of Georgia before joining the Psychology Department at the University of Texas at Dallas. John Santrock is a member of the editorial board of Developmental Psychology. His research on father custody is widely cited and used in expert witness testimony to promote flexibility and alternative considerations in custody disputes. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 688 pages
• Publisher: McGraw-Hill Humanities/Social Sciences/Languages; 5 edition (July 15, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0072564881
• ISBN-13: 978-0072564884
• Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 7.5 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.5 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #573,194 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

22 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The 4th edition is a good revision of a good Adulthood text., January 17, 1999

By 

Suzanne Prescott (Albuquerque, NM USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Adult Development & Aging (Hardcover)

Here we have a text that was already very good. This edition is a thorough review of major contemporary approaches to adult development. As an instructor I tend to favor a contextual lifespan approach and I found the treatment of contextual lifespan psychology to be more than adequate.

The chapter organization is good and the review questions at the end of each chapter are very useful in the course. My students are college juniors and seniors, and they find it easy to read.

I tend to avoid texts that don't do an adequate job of presenting research. This text has a sound introduction to current research in the field, and is an excellent choice for me.

Instructors looking for a good presentation of work on cognition in Adulthood will find the associated chapters useful as both a text and reference material to keep on hand for other courses, such as a 'Lifespan Psychology' course.

The new edition includes more on women, cross-cultural aging, personality and clinical aspects of aging, grandparenting, as well as much new material on aging and adaptation.

I would certainly recommend this book for any solid college level course on Adulthood.

Suzanne Prescott, PhD Governors State University University Park, IL. USA

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Adult Development and Aging, January 30, 2009

By 

Paula Woods Gulston (Pittsburgh, PA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Adult Development and Aging (Hardcover)

Adult Development and Aging: WITH Powerweb

So far this textbook has been very informatiive in understanding the development of the aging population. The book emphasis aging is more than chronological but a lifestyle.

I would recommend this book to anyone who have an interest in social services, health, geriatrics, human behaviors or would like to understand what to expect out of your own life in regards to aging.

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars WARNING - this book is poorly edited!, May 14, 2009

By 

AvidReader (Maryland, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Adult Development and Aging (Hardcover)

I just taught an undergraduate class using this book and I would NOT recommend it to other instructors. It looked good when I decided to adopt it for my class because it integrates a lot of cutting edge research, but teaching with it is a mess because it is so poorly edited.

Students thought it was wordy and did not clearly state the most important findings. They got very confused while studying for tests.

Core theories such as socioemotional selectivity theory or selective optimization with compensation are briefly mentioned at multiple locations but never discussed in detail.

In several cases, definitions in the glossary are inconsistent with those in the text (e.g., "longevity").

Sections of the book contradict each other. At least one graph is duplicated and the legend of some graphs contradicts the findings shown in the figure itself (see, for example Box Figure 10.2a).

Also, some terms are just plain wrong. For example, Super's penultimate stage of career development is called "deceleration" not "declaration" (page 338).

The whole chapter on mental health is a mess. It relies a lot on a study by Kessler et al, examining lifetime prevalence of mental disorders. Lifetime prevalence is not that interesting for life-span development. It would have been much more helpful to have data on one-year prevalence. Also, some sections of that chapter seem out of place (e.g. the paragraph on personality risk and mental health on page 137).

Also, I was sorely missing a chapter on research methods and had to make up my own material to cover that important topic.

Finally, don't bother downloading the PPT slides the publishers provide for instructors. They are not very helpful (almost no graphs, just a bland summary of the content)

Overall, a nice attempt at integrating up-to-date research, but the poor editing makes it difficult to work with.