Old Age: A Process of Growth and Decline, a Life -Span Developmental Perspective.

Stokes (1992, p. 19) observes that throughout the life course there is a need to adapt to environmental demands, the successful or unsuccessful negotiation of which may affect personal growth and development.  Growing old with a sense of personal and social worth

can be difficult in today’s society.  Individuals acquire age stereotypes several decades before becoming old therefore younger individuals are likely to automatically accept age stereotypes without questioning their validity (Levy et al, 2002, p. 261).  As values in society change and a new structure of ideals and expectations develop, an aged person’s interpretation of self worth in a changing and progressive society can be difficult to grasp.  Reduction in enthusiasm for life, withdrawal from activity and lowering of morale may be less often the effect of physical aging but a result of society’s conceptions of old age and therefore the elderly person’s self-conceptions (Stuart-Hamilton, 1994, p. 120).  There is a perception in society that old age is a period of decline.  It is a period where there is definitely a decline in certain attributes but also the emergence and growth of new abilities as the aged are required to meet the changing demands of the individual’s environment and the decline and loss of old abilities (Adams, 1991, p. 323).

Adams (1991, p.323) conducted research into qualitative age differences in memory for text.  She found that there is a shift in old age from a reproductive and text-based processing style in youth to a more reconstructive and interpretive style in maturity.  The aged were less able to reproduce text-based information and recall the specifics of the text but instead displayed an ability to interpret deeper psychological and metaphoric meanings.  Old age has been shown to bring a general decline in the capacity of the working memory but compensatory strategies have therefore emerged to compensate for this decline.  This strategy allows the older person to retain the most essential and global features of the input at the expense of retaining the more detailed, and perhaps less important, information.  Similarly, even though working memory has been shown to decline with old age, idea density, the ability to define words and processing efficiency measures such as reading rate and verbal fluency, does not (Kemper et al, 2001, p. 227).  However, as noted by Kemper et al (2001, p. 227), Alzheimer’s disease leads to a rapid decline in idea density.

Old age is often portrayed as a period of life characterised by multiple losses such as the loss of a spouse and friends.  Although, people facing age related losses may experience decline in subjective well-being, simply getting older should not be associated with this decline.  Subjective well-being, related to dimensions such as life satisfaction, happiness, personal growth, satisfying social relationships and autonomy is relatively stable throughout adulthood and does not show differences even in very old age (Kunzmann et al, 2000, p. 511).  There are also findings that raise the possibility that subjective well-being might even improve with age.  As noted by Kunzmann et al (2000, p.

511), there is evidence to suggest that the aged may not only be more motivated to maintain and improve well-being during old age, but may also be more skilled in doing so.  Sheldon and Kasser (2001 p. 32) also share this view.  They note that age presumably does not directly bring about greater well-being but is a proxy representing the higher levels of psychological development that people often achieve with the passing of time.  Results of their study indicate that the aged know what values are important in life and they pursue these values with a more mature sense of purpose and ownership.  In contrast, the younger people were more likely to pursue superficial values such as money and popularity.  Similarly, the role of goals and commitments in adult development has been studied in recent years and it appears that the ability to establish and maintain appropriate goals is integral to development during the life cycle, including old age (Holahan, 1988, p. 286).  Old age is not seen as a dormant period in self development but rather another opportunity to grow through goal setting and activity participation.

Wisdom is often a characteristic associated with old age.  Wisdom is defined as foresight, a capacity for reflection, the adoption of a meaningful perspective on life, the application of accumulated knowledge and the acquisition of insight (Stokes, 1992, p. 76).  Baltes et al (1995, p. 155) studied a group of people across the lifespan who were deemed to be wise.  This research aimed to establish whether the possession of wisdom is a gift of ageing.  The application of wisdom to everyday problems was assessed and the results showed that even though the acquisition of wisdom is not guaranteed in life, people who were considered to be the most wise were disproportionately represented amongst older people.  The results also showed that older adults did not typically perform worse than younger adults on tasks of fluid intelligence and basic information processing.  This contradicts findings by Zimprich and Martin (2002, p.690) that fluid intelligence decreases with age.  Berg and Sternberg (1992, p. 221) found during their research that everyday problem-solving abilities stabilised through the life cycle and that there is a perception that academic intelligence declines with age whereas practical intelligence increases with age.

It must be noted that diversity and individual differences are the hallmarks of life after 65 – just as they are at any other stage of life.  Individual people vary greatly from one another, so too do their patterns of aging.  Wisdom may increase as people age, whilst physical stamina may decrease.  Activities such as reading may remain stable through the life cycle while other interests such as going to the theatre may change.  Along each dimension people of a given age will vary greatly as will the way they develop over time.  Physical health also has an impact on personal growth and development.  The levels of

social action and occupation will be affected by a person’s health status.  Although the life course can be interpreted as having a beginning and an end, not everyone will experience the same life events in the same order or at the same time.  As Stokes (1992, p. 33) notes, as people grow and develop they take many different paths as alternative routes open up.  

There is a perception in society that old age is a period of decline.  Loss of function of some kind is no doubt a dominant theme across the life span but so too is the emergence and growth of new abilities.  Research findings do not conclusively support the pessimistic views of old age that suggest it is solely a period of decline and it is often the lack of recognition for this presence of growth in old age which is influenced by society’s conceptions of later life.  If there is a limiting factor to achievement in later life it is likely to be poor health.  Blessed with good health and appreciation by others, an aged person may continue successfully to make meaningful contributions to family and community life.  It must be kept in mind, however, that physical functioning as in every other arena of life, diversity and individual differences are essential when describing older people.  While inevitably we must make generalizations about the aging process and older adults, we must keep in mind that any given person may be quite different from the norm.

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References

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AusStats:  Australian Social Trends 1999 – Population Projections: Our Ageing Population.  Retrieved August 10, 2002, from .

Baltes, P.B., Staudinger, U.M., Maercker, A. & Smith, J. (1995).  People Nominated as Wise:  A Comparative Study of Wisdom-Related Knowledge.  Psychology and Aging, 10(2), 155 – 166.  Retrieved March 17, 2003, from Ovidweb database.

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Kunzmann, U., Little, T.D. & Smith, J. (2000).  Is Age-Related Stability of Subjective Well-Being a Paradox?:  Cross-Sectional and Longitudinal Evidence From the Berlin Aging Study.  Psychology and Aging, 15(3), 511 – 526.  Retrieved April 1, 2003, from Ovidweb database.

Levy, B.R., Slade, M.D., Kunkel, S.R. & Kasl, S.V.  (2002).  Longevity Increased by Positive Self-Perceptions of Aging.  Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 83(2), 261 – 270.  Retrieved March 17, 2003, from Ovidweb database.

Sheldon, K. & Kasser, T. (2001).  Getting Older, Getting Better?  Personal Strivings and Psychological Maturity Across the Life Span.  Developmental Psychology, 37(4), 491 – 501.

Stokes, G. (1992).  On Being Old:  The Psychology of Later Life.  United Kingdom:  The Farmer Press.

Stuart-Hamilton, I. (1994).  The Psychology of Aging: an Introduction, 2nd Edition.  Pennsylvania: Jessica Kingsley Publishers.

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