Successful Aging
Perspectives from the Behavioral Sciences

More and more people live into old age. This demographic revolution underscores the fact that old age is the last uncharted and unattended phase of the life cycle.

Paul B. Baltes (Edited by), Margret M. Baltes (Edited by)

9780521435826, Cambridge University Press

Paperback, published 28 May 1993

416 pages
22.8 x 15.2 x 2.9 cm, 0.581 kg

'The high quality of both the theoretical and empirical essays make this an up-to-date and valuable contribution to the life-course literature.' Choice

More and more people live into old age. This demographic revolution underscores the fact that old age is the last uncharted and unattended phase of the life cycle. We know that old age is the last uncharted and unattended phase of the life cycle. We know very little about the strengths and weaknesses of old age or how to achieve a good balance between gains and losses, a meaningful conclusion to life. The fourth volume in a series sponsored by the European Science Foundation Network on Longitudinal Studies on Individual Development, Successful Aging presents in its first section general overviews on successful aging from psychological, sociological, and medical perspectives. The volume's second part focuses on selected areas of human functioning, such as intelligence, memory, athletics, life satisfaction, personal control, coping with illness and loss, widowhood, and mental health. The authors of the various chapters share in the view that aging is not identical with fate, but that individuals play a major role in designing their own process of aging.

Foreword
Preface
1. Psychological perspectives on successful aging: the model of selective optimization with compensation
2. Medical perspectives upon successful aging
3. Successful aging in a post-retired society
4. The optimization of cognitive functioning in old age: predictions based on cohort-sequential and longitudinal data
5. The optimization of episodic remembering in old age
6. Peak performance and age: an examination of peak performance in sports
7. Personal control over development and quality of life perspectives in adulthood
8. Successful mastery of bereavement and widowhood: a life-course perspective
9. The Bonn longitudinal study of aging: coping, life adjustment, and life satisfaction
10. Risk and protective factors in the transition to young adulthood
11. Avoiding negative life outcomes: evidence from a forty-five year study
12. Developing behavioural genetics and successful aging
Name index
Subject index.

Subject Areas: Child & developmental psychology [JMC]