Question

1. Compare and contrast four socioemotional theories of aging.

2. Describe some of the personality changes of late adulthood.

Define ageism, and provide two original examples of ageism.

Imagine that you are an older adult. Indicate and explain the policy issues of concern to you.

Indicate the role of attachment in later adulthood.

Explain what an elderly, ethnic woman can expect to experience during late adulthood.

If you were an older adult, what could you expect to happen to aspects of your social relations such as relationships with adult children and friendship?

8. Evaluate your own culture’s regard for the elderly in terms of the seven factors most likely to predict high status for the elderly.

Explain how the selective optimization with compensation model could help you age successfully.

Answer 1

1. Erik Erikson, who took a special interest in this final stage of life, concluded that the primary psychosocial task of late adulthood (65 and beyond) is to maintain ego integrity (holding on to one's sense of wholeness), while avoiding despair (fearing there is too little time to begin a new life course). Those who succeed at this final task also develop wisdom, which includes accepting without major regrets the life that one has lived, as well as the inescapability of death. However, even older adults who achieve a high degree of integrity may feel some despair at this stage as they contemplate their past. No one makes it through life without wondering if another path may have been happier and more productive.

Two major theories explain the psychosocial aspects of aging in older adults. Disengagement theory views aging as a process of mutual withdrawal in which older adults voluntarily slow down by retiring, as expected by society. Proponents of disengagement theory hold that mutual social withdrawal benefits both individuals and society. Activity theory, on the other hand, sees a positive correlation between keeping active and aging well. Proponents of activity theory hold that mutual social withdrawal runs counter to traditional American ideals of activity, energy, and industry. To date, research has not shown either of these models to be superior to the other. In other words, growing old means different things for different people. Individuals who led active lives as young and middle adults will probably remain active as older adults, while those who were less active may become more disengaged as they age.

As older adults approach the end of their life span, they are more apt to conduct a life review. The elderly may reminisce for hours on end, take trips to favorite childhood places, or muse over photo albums and scrapbooks. Throughout the process, they look back to try to find the meaning and purpose that characterized their lives. In their quest to find life's meaning, older adults often have a vital need to share their reminisces with others who care, especially family.

2.

• During late adulthood the skin continues to lose elasticity, reaction time slows further, muscle strength and mobility diminishes, hearing and vision decline, and the immune system weakens.
• The aging process generally results in changes and lower functioning in the brain, leading to problems like decreased intellectual function and neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s.
• Many of the changes in the bodies and minds of older adults are due in part to a reduction in the size of the brain as well as loss of brain plasticity.
• Memory degenerates in old age, so older adults have a harder time remembering and attending to information. In general, an older person’s procedural memory tends to remain stable, while working memory declines.

Key Terms

• cerebellum: Part of the hindbrain in vertebrates; in humans it lies between the brainstem and the cerebrum and plays an important role in sensory perception, motor output, balance, and posture.
• Alzheimer’s disease: A disorder involving loss of mental functions resulting from brain-tissue changes; a form of senile dementia.
• corpus callosum: In mammals, a broad band of nerve fibers that connects the left and right hemispheres of the brain.
• neurodegenerative: Of, pertaining to, or resulting in the progressive loss of nerve cells and of neurologic function.

8. Aging has been viewed through various lenses throughout history, and over the last 50 years the definition of successful aging has evolved from early theories of activity and disengagement to theoretical approaches with a more direct focus. The major definitions are summarized in Table 1. Some approaches focus more on physical and other approaches more on psychosocial components of successful aging. More recently, successful aging approaches attempt to integrate both into a biopsychosocial approach. Additional directions are found in nursing and geriatric education (Wykle & Gueldner, 2010) and by incorporating distal experiences, which also define a person’s level of “success” (Martin & Martin, 2002). The developmental outcome of life-long experiences could be overall life satisfaction or a well-rounded personality. Appropriately, the focus on experience with a temporal component would bring researchers back to the original definitions first introduced by Havighurst and Neugarten. Rowe and Kahn (1998) chose “successful” as the counterpart to “usual,” rather than a term that better serves as an antonym of usual, such as extraordinary or exceptional. Using extraordinary or exceptional would perhaps be more accurate and less of a value judgment. Missing from Roand Kahn’s definition is a subjective component. Also, they did not take into account preexisting limitations on “individual choice and effort,” such as life-long disability, poverty, and so forth. These latter dimensions are addressed in proactivity-based models such as those proposed by Kahana and Kahana (1996, 2003). Given the brief history, some of the questions for the next generations of gerontologists interested in providing more parsimonious understanding of successful aging are as follows: (a) What are the minimal definitions needed to describe successful aging? (b) How do we reconcile the various models of successful aging in our research? (c) How important are individual perceptions in the measurement of successful aging? (d) What are some of the primary interactions (e.g., gene and environment, environment and personality, and so forth) that should also be emphasized? Where is successful dying in the discourse on successful aging? To the extent that successful aging inevitably is followed by death, it behooves us to consider perspectives on success in achieving a good death. Thus far, there have been few if any linkages between a good old age and a good death. The literature on advance care planning primarily offers nursing and medical perspectives, and few psychologists and gerontologists have addressed this issue from a broader perspective, beyond planning for end of life care. The New England Journal of Medicine recently conducted a poll on physician-assisted suicide among the journal’s readers in which people (primarily health care providers) from 74 countries responded. About 65% of votes were against the idea of permitting physician-assisted suicide. The authors concluded that the way in which patients die and the role of palliative care will remain issues of much debate. However, there was general agreement among respondents about the importance of palliative care, including hospice, for helping terminally ill patients (Colbert, Schulte, & Adler, 2013). These critical issues should be an integral piece of the successful aging conversation. The successful aging literature also lacks much interface with the literature on disability. Although it is increasingly acknowledged that successful aging may be possible even for those with chronic and disabling illness (Phelan et al., 2004), we have not seriously explored the meaning of successful aging for those living with disabilities. Kahana and Kahana’s (2001) work on successful aging with HIV/AIDS illustrated the growing scientific interest in this question. This brings us back to Glass’s thesis (2003): that successful aging must ultimately be about what older adults value, rather than the chimera of younger adult health in an older adult body