Aging and Development

Social and Emotional Perspectives

Peter G. Coleman, Ann O'Hanlon

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• Print ISBN: 9781848723269
• eBook ISBN: 9781317538431
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: Developmental Psychology
• Index: Psychology

The psychology of aging usually focuses upon cognitive changes, with a particular focus on dementia and other forms of cognitive decline. But getting older is about more than simply changes to the brain and related health issues. Changes to our social and emotional lives are also hugely significant as we adapt across our lifespan.

The second edition of Aging and Development is the only textbook available that responds to the growing interest in social, personal and emotional development in older age. Ideally suited to complement texts on cognitive change, the book provides a holistic developmental perspective on aging. It highlights a range of issues, including the development of personal meaning and spirituality, improvements in emotional control, uses of reminiscence and life review, the importance of healthy attitudes to aging, as well as the maintenance of close personal relationships. It does not avoid the difficult issues of late life decline, but illustrates how even in circumstances of physical and mental frailty a positive sense of self can be created and enhanced.

Fully updated to provide the most cutting-edge overview on this burgeoning topic of interest, Aging and Development includes a glossary and list of useful websites both on the study of gerontology and the psychology of aging. It will be essential reading for all students of developmental psychology, as well as anyone either training to work or already working with older people.

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INTRODUCTION

Aging and development

This book describes psychological theory and research about aging from a developmental perspective. This may seem an unusual way of approaching a subject more commonly associated with physical and mental decline, but if so this is because we have adopted Western culture’s exaggeratedly negative stance towards what it is like to grow old. Especially now that aging has become such a common experience we need to look at it afresh, and with eyes widened by new considerations of the benefits and potentials of the gift of a long life. Even though it can be defined precisely in biological terms, aging is also from another perspective a social construction. How we perceive age varies from culture to culture and from one historical period to another.

A principal value of theory in the social and human sciences is that it provides new ways of considering human life which we may think prematurely that we already understand. Of course we do know a lot about life just by being part of it, but we are always in need of new insights that allow us to imagine new possibilities. Despite the subsequent criticisms of the detailed content of his theory, Sigmund Freud’s emphasis on the early origins of human emotional difficulties has made us see childhood in a way that is different to those of previous historical periods. As a result we are more ready than our predecessors to accept the importance of sensitive periods in people’s lives. Yet theory can at the same time also be a hindrance to fresh thought. An over-deterministic view of the consequences of childhood trauma and deprivation for the remaining parts of the life course may have made people overly pessimistic about the possibilities for therapy and effecting positive change in adulthood. Even after the substantial research endeavours of Michael Rutter and others outlining the redemptive effects of positive relationships in adolescence and young adulthood on those abused in childhood, the legacy of childhood determinism still looms large in psychology and in society generally.

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Theory then is a double-edged sword. It points in new directions while at the same time barring the way along alternative paths. It is for this reason that we are always in need of new theoretical input. Scientific understanding is always provisional, the best approximation until the next more comprehensive system is developed. A little humility is appropriate therefore about any one theory, and safety is better in numbers. Keeping company with a number of theories, appreciating their strengths, recognising their weaknesses, observing how they get on together, taking others on board as one can, is the best recipe for continued growth. Also since we want to understand better the psychology of the individual person, we benefit from a wide range of perspectives. No one theory is likely to satisfy our curiosity about the complexities of human behaviour and experience.

Theory and research share an intimate relationship. Theory is the starting point for research. Research can also produce new theory, but without at least some interpretative framework it is impossible to make coherent observations. We need to take our stand on some basic assumptions. In psychology, for example, careful observation of the individual person can provide ideas that form the assumptions for subsequent larger-scale investigations. It is often assumed that quality of research methodology is the main test of useful research. The choice of theoretical ideas to test, their origin and rationale, are seen as less controversial. But ideas too have their history and require nurturing as well as critical examination. It is important not to be misled by unproven propositions, but equally we should not raise barriers to prevent us from acknowledging additional perspectives that may be helpful.

As part of a developmental series, this book is concerned to introduce readers to ways of thinking about growing old as continued growth, in which persons in later life continue to develop new capacities and adapt successfully to the physical and social problems that arise, such as increasing likelihood of health problems and experience of loss. It is not a book about the psychological decrements of aging. This is not to deny that these issues exist and that they are worthy of study. In fact most of the early work in the psychology of aging was of this character, for example in the performance comparisons between different age groups pioneered in Britain by Francis Galton. Their subsequent dominance of the field has made it almost natural to associate the psychology of aging with the psychology of decline. There are excellent introductory books available on cognitive aging that detail findings on changes in performance with age in various fields such as memory, reaction time and problem solving. This book is about the emotional, relational and internal responses to living a long time that reveal the more positive side of the experience of aging.

‘Aging’ itself is an ambiguous term. Strictly speaking it refers to the accumulation of time that one lives. But often it is used to imply decline, as when we talk about a machine that ages, or when we refer to biological processes of deterioration in functioning. Psychological aging is a different matter. Processes of loss and gain take place throughout the life cycle. Children’s more spontaneous approach to the world around them tends to disappear as intellectual and social developments proceed. This is also a form of aging, but we accept it as part of child development. If the losses of later life impress us more than the gains, it could be because in the Westernised world we exaggerate the losses and do not sufficiently value the gains. This does not have to be the case. Other cultures have a better appreciation of the spiritual developments that physical decline and changing social roles in fact help make possible.

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The study of aging has long suffered from an inadequate cultural and societal basis to the data on which social and psychological theorising is based. Although there have been noticeable advances in recent years, particularly in Asian societies, the vast majority of major studies have been conducted in North America and Western Europe. A good example of the limitations arising from this restricted data base have been shown by recent European Union data that highlight differences in the relationship between age and well-being even within the relatively small part of the world constituted by European countries. Analysis shows that the relatively late peaks of well-being, in the seventh decade and beyond, reported in younger older persons within North American and Western European societies are not paralleled in less wealthy Eastern European societies. In the latter countries declines in levels of expressed happiness already begin in middle age and continue into old age (Morgan et al., 2015; Steptoe et al., 2015). There is also considerable variation even among Western European countries in older people’s expressed well-being (Ploubidis and Grundy, 2009). These findings remind us that psychological change with age occurs in a social context.

Nevertheless, it is good to see that the literature on developmental issues related to aging is expanding, but as a result this book has to be more selective than its predecessor. We cannot do justice to all current theoretical ideas, let alone all important research findings. Our text has been constructed in three parts, the first dealing with the study of developmental change with age, the second with processes of adaptation to physical and social aging and the various resources older people employ to do this successfully, while the third concentrates on the later stages of aging considering issues relating to both development and adaptation. Each part contains a chapter on development of thinking and theory construction followed by a chapter on selected research projects conducted over the last twenty years on topics relevant to the theory already described.

In Chapter 2 we consider what have now become classic developmental accounts of aging written by psychodynamic theorists, particularly Erik Erikson’s psychosocial model of successive life tasks, as well as currently influential theories based on systematic observation, including Laura Carstensen’s socio-emotional selectivity (SES) theory, and more recent developmental hypotheses such as Lars Tornstam’s theory of gerotranscendence. It is possible to regard some of these theories, such as SES theory, as normative accounts of average trends with age, but others, such as gerotranscendence theory, as ideal models of adult development and aging that provide descriptions of what is possible and also desirable in advanced age.

Such theorising may seem too prescriptive in contemporary postmodern societies that prefer to leave value choices to the individual. But they contain important notions about aging that continue to have resonance. They can be considered in historical terms as reactions to the denigration of age that had become a habitual thought pattern by the early twentieth century. Psychodynamic thinkers such as Jung and Erikson and succeeding theorists of adult development have sought to provide guidance on the purpose and meaning to living a long life. Many of them have found inspiration in studies of traditional cultures outside of the Western mainstream.

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In Chapter 3 we present three distinct areas of current research investigation on normative development in later life. The first is ‘emotion regulation’, a field of research on age changes that has grown considerably in recent years. In contrast to the study of cognition it presents the experience of aging in a much more favourable light. Much of the work has been inspired by the developmental theory of socio-emotional selectivity, but in turn has also given rise to further more specific theorising about what distinguishes the emotional responses of younger and older people. The second topic we have selected is ‘generativity’, Erik Erikson’s original focus on midlife development, a subject relatively neglected until reawakened at the end of the twentieth century, particularly by the US personality theorist and researcher Dan McAdams. We consider attempts to operationalise and measure this concept, as well as recent research that examines generativity’s role in adult development and its implications for well-being in later life.

The final developmental topic we have chosen to highlight is an area of research with many practical implications, influenced by Erikson’s concept of ‘integrity’, but even more so by Robert Butler’s theory of the ‘life review’. This reflects a powerful traditional myth, the replaying of life’s key scenes in the mind’s eye preceding death. However, empirical investigation suggests that reminiscence has various other functions too, and that life review itself is not a universal phenomenon. Much of our discussion of reminiscence focuses on the conceptual clarification that often has to take place before research can progress further. But we also give attention to the progress recently made by researchers evaluating reminiscence and life review interventions.

Chapters 4 and 5 constitute the second part of the book and consider approaches to aging and development that have become more popular since the 1970s. These are mainly attributable to the rise of the study of lifespan developmental psychology, associated especially with the pioneering work of researchers in the United States and Germany. This school of researchers has come to eschew what it would regard as over-simplistic normative developmental theory in favour of a more plastic view of adult development. It has followed Erikson though in showing a preference for an interdisciplinary view of human development, in which social, historical and cultural influences play a key influence. However, these external influences act not just to support or inhibit intrinsic psychological strivings and potential, but determine in a more direct way the structure and goals of life by establishing societal life patterns that guide development.

This is not necessarily a more deterministic view of aging. Theorists working in this field stress human plasticity right until advanced age, and the possibilities for adaptation to change that exist both at the individual and the social level. Generalisation, however, is difficult, except at the more abstract level of defining the limits of human competence and adaptability. Interesting questions arise about the different trajectories people can follow through life. Differentiation, not standardisation, is the norm and becomes greater with age. Thus there is no one path to ‘successful aging’, but rather different styles of living, managing change, and surviving. The previously popular concept of ‘adjustment’ has been superseded by less value-laden concepts such as adaptation and coping. However, we have kept a link with developmental theory by including consideration of attachment styles as important influences upon adaptation to aging.

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In Chapter 5 we illustrate research in this area with three further distinct topic areas. The first is attitudes to aging. This was a neglected area of research until recently but one that we consider to be of great importance to developments in research on adaptation to aging. Anxiety about aging appears to be on the increase in many Western societies. We pay particular attention to the factors that influence people’s prospective views on their own personal futures, as well as the importance of combatting ageist attitudes within society towards older adults. The second topic is the supportive role of relationships, and the challenges faced by older people who experience distressing levels of loneliness in the absence of such relationships. Also reviewed are caregiving challenges within close relationships, and recovery from the loss of close relationships following bereavement.

The final topic in this chapter is meaning, spirituality and religion, a relatively new but rapidly expanding area of research activity. As many novels on the theme of aging illustrate, questions of meaning, both of one’s own life and also of life in general, become critical in the later years. This is an area of research where conceptual issues are particularly complex and where generational differences are most marked. We therefore give attention to both these issues before reviewing recent research on associations with well-being and coping in later life.

The third part of the book (Chapters 6 and 7) focuses on advanced old age. This is the period of life that has come to be called the ‘fourth age’, when the optimal conditions for self-determination that distinguish the ‘third age’ begin to be seriously diminished by the biological limitations of aging. This is not typically thought of as a time of development, but in fact very late life provides some of the most remarkable illustrations of adaptation, and of successful coping with very taxing life situations. Perhaps because we find it more difficult to identify with those facing massive loss of control and of energy at this stage of life, we do not appreciate as we should the sometimes dramatic behaviour changes that older people display in the face of these challenges.

As Paul Baltes has emphasised, extreme old age, in its present pervasive character and duration, is a relatively new stage of life, and we do not yet have adequate conceptual frameworks with which to understand it. The early developmental theories of the lifespan did not include consideration of the fourth age. Yet by the middle of this century the numbers of the very old will have greatly increased. In the more wealthy parts of the world the numbers over 85 years of age may well exceed those aged under 5 years. This was an issue that both Erik Erikson and his wife Joan wrestled with at the end of their lives. Erik Erikson himself lived to 92 years and spent his last period in a nursing home. An extended life in some form of care or assisted-living setting is to be expected by most of those who live to a great age.

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The models of coping that have been found helpful in understanding adaptation at earlier periods of life seem less than adequate when applied to the fourth age. More close observation and reflection are needed. Fortunately for this new edition we have been able to draw on the greatly increased research activity regarding the psychology of late life that has taken place since the beginning of the century. In Chapter 6 we give particular attention to what is known about the psychological characteristics of the very old as well as to theorising about the benefits to them of processes of accommodation and self-transcendence in facing the seemingly inevitable declines of late life. We also give particular attention to the study of well-being both in care settings and living with dementia.

In Chapter 7 we examine examples of research in three areas. The first concerns maintenance of sense of self, one of the longest studied topics in the psychology of aging, but now needing to be extended to the ages of 90, 100 and beyond. We consider recent studies on the benefits of processes of accommodation in late life. We also examine the extension of socio-emotional selectivity theory in studies that reveal the greater emotional complexity in the psychology of very old people. A further research example illustrates the value of individual case analysis in studying adaptation to the later stages of aging. The second topic examines examples of recent research illustrating the importance of meeting need for both autonomy and relatedness of residents in care and assisted-living settings. In the final part we describe two areas of current research activity both of which are helping to promote living well with dementia: first understanding and encouraging processes of adaptation to a diagnosis...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Aging and Development
• International Texts in Developmental Psychology
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• List of Illustrations
• Preface
• 1 Introduction: Aging and Development
• Part I Developmental Perspectives on Aging
• Part II Aging and Adaptation
• Part III Development and Adaptation in Advanced Old Age
• Selected Websites
• Glossary
• References
• Index