Developmental Continuity, Perceptions of

Changes in the Evaluation of Continuity Across the Life Span

Imagine a student receiving feedback that the student’s grades have not changed. The perception of continuity in those grades would depend on the student’s personal expectation about whether the grades had worsened or improved. Although improved or worsened grades represent distinct positive or negative states, the personal reaction that one has toward continuity may vary depending on one’s expectations. A student who expected the grades to worsen would view continuity in the grades positively, whereas a student who expected the grades to improve would view continuity in the grades negatively.

During adulthood and with increasing age, losses in various life domains become more frequent and significant. As people age, they become aware of losses in their overall physical resilience, in vision and hearing, in the health of those close to them, and in their own level of social integration. As these losses are expected in older age, an individual’s developmental loss expectations become comparison standards in evaluations made by aging adults regarding their personal situations. Lowered comparison standards result in more positive perceptions of developmental states with increasing age: People who expect losses evaluate poorer outcomes more favorably as compared to people who expect gains. This difference in how people evaluate developmental states becomes particularly apparent in developmental states that allow for variability in interpretation, like continuity.

One study investigated the perceptions of improvement, continuity, and decline across the life span and showed that when different age groups were asked how they would evaluate continuity in their level of functioning in the next 5–10 years, evaluations differed depending on the developmental expectations held by each age-group. Older adults, who expected to experience losses, evaluated continuity as a gain, whereas younger adults evaluated continuity as a loss. This [Page 573]finding was consistent across different areas of functioning (e.g., personal well-being, social relationships, cognition, physical functioning) and was not related to current levels of functioning in these areas within each age-group. One could ask whether only high-functioning individuals were assessed and whether only those individuals evaluated continuity more positively. This was not the case: All older adults, even those who rated their levels of functioning as low, rated continuity more positively. Perhaps low-functioning older adults presume that their level of functioning could further decline. Although objectively these adults might not be doing well from an outside perspective, currently maintaining stable levels of functioning would subjectively be a good thing because their situation could “get even worse.”

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