INTRODUCTION
Theories of Aging: A Recent Overview
• Pioneer work in aging theory by Hall (1922),
Miles (1933), Jung (1933), and Buhler (1933).
• Post-WWII work in
psychogerontology.
• Theories of aging derived from biology,
psychology, and sociology.
• Lack of pragmatic theory
considering biological, behavioral, and social factors.
• Theories are crucial in organizing
and interpreting facts in science.
Aging Research Values: Cultural, Scientific, and Practical
• Understanding mortality process and changes with age is crucial for better adaptation of the aged.
• Factors enhancing adaptability and quality of life have profound implications for all cultures.
Scientific Perspective:
• Theories of aging enhance scientific knowledge for better organization, description, explanation, and prediction of aging.
Practical Implications:
• Gerontological research aims to determine skills and competencies of the elderly.
• Fluid abilities like information processing decline with age, while crystalized abilities like world events may grow.
Psycho-sociological Theories of Aging:
• Early/Classical Theories: Biologically determined, decline with age.
• Second generation/Modern Theories: Growth with age.
• New Theories: Emerging perspectives.
EARLY/CLASSIC THEORY
Activity Theory in Aging
• Failure can cause unhappiness, difficulty in performing later tasks, and societal disapproval.
• Believes in preserving activities/tasks of middle age for normal and successful aging.
• Assumes that maintaining active life in old age keeps people socially, psychologically, and physically fit.
• Asserts that life satisfaction and morale are positively associated with social integration and increased involvement with social networks.
• Critiques include the lack of generalizability, oversimplification, and lack of explanation for older people's interests and abilities.
• Blace (2012) emphasizes the importance of engagement in activities and
suggests that the elderly are capable of working and remaining active in the
labor sector.
Disengagement Theory and Its Implications
• It suggests that people turn inward from middle age and this tendency progresses with age.
• Disengagement is characterized by a natural withdrawal from social activities and roles, increased self-preoccupation, and decreased emotional attachment.
• Successful aging implies a reduction in activity levels and decrease in involvement.
• Disengagement is a gradual phenomenon involving separation from regular roles and activities.
• The theory suggests that older individuals are replaced by younger ones as they become less useful.
• Disengagement is seen differently for males and females, with males consciously dissociating from active roles to make room for the younger generation.
• The theory does not explain the psychological and social processes of aging, and it may ignore personality factors and their influence on disengagement.
• Proponents of the activity theory argue that disengagement theory may be
relevant to only a minority of elderly, but for the majority, maintaining an
active lifestyle positively affects their well-being.
Normal Aging Theory Overview
• The internal structure includes stable personality traits, beliefs, and attitudes.
• The external structure includes relationships and social roles.
• The theory suggests understanding aging by examining the complex interrelationships among biological, psychological, and social changes and previous behavior patterns.
• Neugarten's theory emphasizes the timing of transitional events in life for successful aging.
• He suggests eight different patterns of adjustment to aging based on different personality types.
• The theory offers a multiplicity of adjustment patterns depending on an individual's personality type/internal and external structure.
• However, empirical testing is challenging due to the need for case studies to
understand the degree of an individual's ability to continue their previous
pattern of living.
Psychosocial Theory of Personality Development
• Successful resolution of these crises leads to virtue development, preparing individuals for future crises.
• The stages do not occur at the same age intervals; early stages occur in short time spans and are more detailed than later ones.
• Joan Erikson proposed a ninth stage where the negative pole of the crises takes a dominant role over the positive, leading to increased despair and loss of autonomy.
• The task is to develop an attitude of retirement in relation to the world.
• The theory has limited empirical evidence for later staged old age stages, viz. generativity vs stagnation and integrity vs despair.
• Despite its age, the theory was the first to focus on life span personality
development, focusing on psychodynamic and social factors shaping the
individual psyche.
Second Generation/Modern Theories
Life-span Development and Aging: A Psychological Perspective
• Baltes' framework includes seven propositions:
- Optimal aging, normal aging, and pathological aging differ, with the former focusing on improving age-friendly environments.
- Aging process is heterogeneous across individuals.
- There is a latent reserve of capacity in the aged.
- Aging loss in the range of reserve capacity or adaptability.
- Individual and social knowledge of facts increases with age to compensate for age-related fluid intelligence decline.
- As the person ages, the balance between gains and losses becomes increasingly negative.
- The self remains resilient in old age, coping and maintaining integrity to protect self-esteem.
• Baltes proposed a psychological model of "selective optimization with compensation," focusing on managing the dynamics between losses and gains.
• The model is relevant in successful aging, helping the aged engage in
important life tasks despite reduced adaptive potential and energy reserves.
Personality and Aging Theory Overview
• Two main theoretical traditions in personality and aging theory are trait and developmental stage models.
• Erik Erikson's theory (1950) and Levinson’s theory (1978) are the first to understand personality development across age.
• Levinson’s developmental stage model conceptualizes life into three phases: early adulthood, middle adulthood, and late adulthood.
• The theory has limitations, including the impossibility of replicating in-depth interviews and being conducted only with male respondents.
• Trait theories of personality suggest structural stability and consistency in personality traits across age groups.
• Paul Costa and Robert McCrae's OCEAN model proposes five major factors: openness to experience, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism.
• The trait model has been extended to understand personality-related
constructs like self-concept and locus of control.
Labelling Theory Overview
• Self is socially constructed and reconstructed through interactions with community.
• Actions are judged by others as they assume certain roles in society.
• Bengston (1973) suggests labelling theory can explain aged behavior.
• Negative labels like'senile' or 'old' significantly impact self-perception.
• Individuals fall under a label, perceived as having similar characteristics.
• Self-concept is based on the label, dependent on interaction with social milieu.
• Identity, roles, and social position are significantly determined by labels.
• Permanent indicators of an individual's acquired identity.
Exchange Theory in Aging
• People enter social relationships to derive rewards like power, recognition, security, love, and sustenance.
• The process of achieving rewards incurs costs like negative experiences, fatigue, monetary losses, and emotional exhaustion.
• As individuals age, their ability to invest in social exchange decreases, leading to increased dependency on available resources.
• Dowd (1975) argues that decreased social interaction forces the elderly to comply, resulting in increased dependency on medical care and retirement pensions.
• Unlike Disengagement theory, exchange theory views disengagement as a series of exchange relations where the relative power of the aged deteriorates.
• Despite its limitations, the theory offers insight into social aging and the
potential of older people in exercising their power in social relationships.
New Theories
Gerotranscendence Theory: A Pathbreaking Approach to Spiritual
Development
• It aims to disengage from worldly activities to allow younger generations to take on social roles and find meaning in life.
• The theory assumes that individual perception of reality changes as individuals mature.
• Achieving gerotranscendence is unique to old age as it involves a spiritual perspective on life.
• Progress towards gerotranscendence is reflected through behavioral and experiential changes, such as decreased interest in materialistic world, increased self-preoccupation, and a redefinition of perception of space, time, and objects.
• The theory was developed through qualitative interviews with people aged 52 to 97 years.
• The three dimensions of gerotranscendence identified are Cosmic, Self, and Social.
• The Cosmic dimension reflects a changed understanding of the world, acceptance of death as a reality, and moving away from egocentricity.
• The Social dimension includes changed social relationships, less investment in social world, increased need for solitude, and withholding judgment or advice.
• The theory has been criticized for its abstractness and lack of a concrete,
measurable, and empirically verifiable basis of research.
