Synonyms
Birth cohort; Cohort effect; Generation (e.g., Baby boomers); Generational shift
Definition
The term cohort refers to a group of people born at about the same time.
In geropsychology, the term cohort refers to a group of people born at about the same time. While it has long been considered a nuisance variable for age-based developmental studies, cohort is an important variable for many researchers in the social and health sciences because it provides evidence of secular changes. Studies of cohort effects on intelligence, reasoning, memory, and other cognitive abilities have garnered recent attention in both the academic and lay communities (Schaie et al. 2005; Williams 2013). A cogent example is the Flynn effect (Flynn 1987), which is the observation that generation by generation, people are becoming smarter with respect to intelligence test scores.
This entry will focus on cohort effects on cognitive performance primarily in adulthood and older age. After reviewing some of...
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Kennison, R.F., Situ, D., Reyes, N., Ahacic, K. (2016). Cohort Effects. In: Pachana, N. (eds) Encyclopedia of Geropsychology. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-287-080-3_262-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-287-080-3_262-1
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