Blog 2- Late Adulthood

  Chapter 12 Late Adulthood.  This chapter discusses Erik Erikson’s developmental stage of “Integrity vs Despair”.  It discusses the psycho-social-emotional issues of those age 60 and over.  That everyone ages is a fact, that we do it well depends on a variety of factors. Varying theories are based on those varying factors and depending on which factors are being focused on, is reflected in each theory. 

  For instance, the continuity theory (Atchley 1989) talks about how people do not change all that much as they age – this theory is based on the longitudinal study that looked at personality traits in the aging. The activity theory (Havighurst 1961) is based on the assumption that people age with greater well-being when they remain active. This theory looked at those factors i.e. did the person continue to stay engaged with people and activities.  The disengagement theory (Cumming & Henry 1961) argues that a process of mutual withdrawal between the individual and society occurs in late adulthood (p. 600).  This theory looked at behaviors of aging adults and how they appeared to retreat from society.

These theories  have been more or less replaced with more recent theories but they all  seem to agree that the three main factors appearing to contribute to successful aging are: 1). Maintaining cognitive ability 2). Avoiding disease….   And 3). Maintaining active engagement with life (p. 600). 

The discrepancy seems to lie in the agreement of at what age each of these factors begin to dwindle and death ensues.   As the writer of the chapter so aptly put it: the hazard of living is death (p. 608) and no one can avoid it.  Future studies will be interesting to follow as the “Baby Boomers” continue to age and our culture becomes more populated with the elderly.

Reference:

Ashford, J.B., LeCroy, C.W. (2013). Human Behavior in the Social Environment: A Multidimensional Perspective.