Aging,Identity, and Women: Constructing the Third Age

The “Third Age” offers a conceptualization of the lives of those who are retired and beyond middle age but not facing any disability stereotypically associated with the “old.” Emphasizing good health, freedom from the responsibilities of younger adulthood, and continuing engagement with the world, it articulates a specific form of positive aging that has received very little attention within psychology. We adopted a feminist and critical discursive approach in exploring how eight women, who fit the Third Age profile, understand their lives and who they are. Audiotaped semi-structured interviews were transcribed and analyzed. The participants drew on four pairs of interpretative repertoires in constructing the meanings of aging. Their identity work involved positioning themselves as “not old” and establishing continuity between who they have been in the past and who they are now. The results highlight the women’s agency as they negotiated between the discursive resources available to them. Drawing on a framework for feminist therapy that incorporates an emphasis on social change, we discuss the implications of these results.     

Dying to Be Old: A Sociological Analysis of Old Age as Cause of Death

While gerontology and issues of aging are attracting more focus and scholarship, little has been done to examine the social constructions of old age as perception, particularly in historical contexts. We use data from gravestones and burial records (1870s–1950s) of a single, large, midwestern cemetery to examine those who were said to have died of old age or senility for patterned differences in the application of these labels. We then compare this labeled group with all others of the same age range in the cemetery for fundamental demographic differences that would explain the presence or absence of these elder-status labels. Though differences in patterns between and within groups were often small and not statistically significant, they are typically in the direction predicted, and contribute to some historical sense of old age as social construction.     

基于年龄建构的老化心理——一项深度访谈研究报告

为考察年龄建构的老化心理,采用质化深度访谈法收集资料,结合现象学分析法和使用扎根理论资料分析法分析资料,结果发现,年龄建构了“增龄即老化”以及拒老、服老、怯老、终老等老化心理。老年人先以“不老之心”抵抗生理性老化;后屈服于并认可“落伍者”和退休者的老年身份;再因老年病的常态化对成为“累赘”和“负担”感到担忧;最后在恐惧和无奈中向人生告别。研究评估了结果的描述型、解释型和评价型效度作,分别为5、4.77、4.38分。     

Thoughts of an Old Therapist About the Impact of Age on Her Clinical Work

This article deals with the impact of old age on the clinician as well as on the patients and families. The factors which seem to play an important role are: (a) The personal events in the clinician's life; (b) The changes which took place in the profession; (c) The life histories of the individuals and families which influenced the author's work as well as how her age affected families and the individuals. Several case illustrations are given to demonstrate the author's ideas. It is the author's hope that her experiences will encourage older therapists to continue in their practice.     

Managing Old Age: The Disciplinary Web of Power, Surveillance and Normalization

Health and welfare have emerged as key vehicles used to legitimize and position the identities that older people adopt in contemporary western societies. Both health and welfare contain specific yet continually changing technologies that function to mediate relations between older people and the state. Medico-technical and care management discourses have been presented as adding choice and reducing limitations associated with adult aging. However, they also represent an increase in professional control that can be exerted on lifestyles in older age and thus, the wider social meanings associated with that part of the lifecourse. This article presents a theoretical analysis based on a critical reading of the work of Michel Foucault; identifies the interrelationship between managers and older people in terms of power, surveillance and normalization; and highlights how and why older people remain the subjects of legitimizing professional gazes.     

Longitudinal Changes in Memory Performance and Processing Speed in Old Age abstract Keywords

The speed theory of cognitive aging posits that an age-related slowing of processing speed leads to impairments in higher order cognitive functions, such as memory. However, only few studies have examined the relationship between longitudinal changes in processing speed and longitudinal changes in memory performance. In the present study, data of 474 older adults (T1: 59–65 years) from the Interdisciplinary Longitudinal Study on Adult Development (ILSE) were used to investigate whether changes in speed and in memory were associated over a 4-year period. Performance changes in both constructs were analyzed using latent change factor models. Results show that latent changes in processing speed and latent changes in memory performance correlated with 0.61. This association is considerably lower than what would have been expected from cross-sectional data. Our longitudinal results suggest that although speed changes explain a substantial proportion of variance in memory changes, additional explanatory factors must be taken into consideration.     

Religiousness and Subjective Well-Being Among Jewish Female Residents of Old Age Homes in Israel

ABSTRACT

The present study explored the prevalence of religiousness among Jewish elderly women residing in old age homes in Israel and its impact on their subjective well-being. The sample included 464 respondents residing in 48 old age homes. Religiousness was measured through self-rated religiousness and religious faith scales (Ben Meir & Kedem, 1979). Subjective well-being was measured by the PGC (Philadelphia Geriatric Center) Morale Scale (Lawton, 1975). The findings revealed that the majority of the elderly define themselves as traditional, orthodox or ultra orthodox. Multiple regression analysis revealed that religiousness did not affect the residents' subjective well-being.     

Between Midlife and Old Age:

This article is based on taped interviews with 56 women, individually and in groups, between the ages of 60 and 70, as well as my own experience as a woman past 65. Discussions with my friends and colleagues in this age group also contributed to my thinking. My sense is that the seventh decade is one of numerous transitions in the lives of women, and that these transitions require extensive, varied, and often painful opportunities for learning. Furthermore, the proximity to life's ending also acts as a strong motivator for engaging in activities that had previously been put off; these include a variety of self-selected and often pleasurable learning experiences. The learning that takes place at this age is rarely acknowledged; it is more likely to be overshadowed by the ageist assumption that old people lost their ability to learn or even to comprehend new information, and by the sexist assumption that women are incapable of making intelligent and practical decisions. These interviews and informal discussion contradict such stereotypical misinformation about old women, showing instead a high level of personal and interpersonal learning, as well as the development of extensive and creative new coping strategies.     

Aging Artists on the Creativity of Their Old Age

Eighty-eight graphic artists in their 60s, 70s, and 80s, nominated as creative by 154 prominent artists, completed an open-ended questionnaire about aging and its effect on their work. Four questions referred to changes in creativity in terms of the quality and quantity of work, sources of new ideas (originality), and approaches to art (style). The artists also were asked about the impact of physical and sensory losses on their work, and on their differences from younger artists. The artists also rated the quality and quantity of their past, present, and anticipated work. A content analysis of the artists' written comments to the 6 questions, and the ratings, gave a highly positive picture of aging's influence on art. Quality and quantity were reported as improving with age, as were the artists' ideas about, and approaches to, art. The presumed handicaps of aging largely were irrelevant or overcome. Few differences were reported with younger artists. Positive views of aging held equally for both men and women, and across the 3 age groups. The optimistic portrait of aging reflected by this sample of visual artists is discussed in terms of its relevance to other kinds of artists and nonartists; the consequences of early retirement; and the place of active older persons, especially artists, in studies of cognitive development.     

Middle Aging in Women: Patterns of Personality Change from the 30s to the 50s

This three-sample study focused on changes in four key features of women's personalities (identity, generativity, confident power, and concern about aging) over the course of middle age. Based on women's retrospective and concurrent feelings about their lives in their 30s, 40s, and 50s, scales were developed and validated for the four themes. We found that identity certainty, generativity, confident power, and concern about aging all were experienced as more prominent in middle age (the 40s) than in early adulthood (the 30s). We also found that these elements of personality were rated even higher in the 50s than the 40s. Scores seemed to be a function of age more than historical period or particular experiences in social roles. Scores on identity certainty, generativity, and confident power were positively related to well-being, while concern about aging was negatively related to well-being.     

Checking ID‐cards for the sale of restricted goods: Age decisions bias face decisions

Matching unfamiliar faces is highly error‐prone, and most studies highlight the implications for real‐world ID‐checking. Here we study a particular instance of ID‐checking: proof of age for buying restricted goods such as alcohol. In this case, checkers must establish that an identity document is carried by its legitimate owner (i.e., that the ID photo matches the face of the bearer) and that the ID proves the bearer to be old enough to make the purchase. Across three experiments, using two common forms of photo‐ID (i.e., driving licenses, PASS+ cards) we show that observers produce very high error rates when age requirements are met, but faces mismatch. This bias away from detecting a face mismatch remained evident in experienced cashiers—though to a somewhat attenuated level. We discuss interactions between face matching and other tasks, and the practical consequences of a bias which favours those using photo‐ID with fraudulent intent.     

Narrative Practices and Positive Aging: A Reflection about Life Celebration in a Group of Old Women

The main objective of this article is to address the impact of narrative practices in life celebration after the age of 80 and in the co-construction of a community-positive future. We share here an exploratory reflection about the narratives of a group of older women integrated in a community project. The Wednesday Tea Project (Chá das Quartas) has been ongoing for 4 years, and involves a group of old women experiencing high levels of loneliness and isolation in their small village in Portugal. The Wednesday Tea Project is based on positive psychology methodologies and consists of ritualized sessions that encourage participatory group dynamics. To describe how this project has highlighted the benefits of narrative practices, we utilized a series of scaffolding questions. Some of the most relevant outcomes of this project are: (a) the deconstruction of the dominant social discourse; (b) the publication of a book; (c) the reduction of loneliness feelings by re-membering significant figures; and (d) new levels of action both to women and the community as a consequence of a re-authoring process. Narrative practices seem to have contributed to the consolidation of all time dimensions, giving these women the opportunity to celebrate life after the age of 80, while also allowing the community to be part of and to benefit from the process. A reflection about the contributions of this article to a paradigm change toward positive aging is presented.     

Episodic Memory in Adult Age and Effects of Sibship Size and Birth Order: Longitudinal Data

This study examined the effects of sibship size and birth order on episodic memory performance in adulthood and old age. Participants were 1,141 healthy individuals aged 35–80 years, who took part in a longitudinal project on age, health, and memory. Episodic memory measurements over a 5-year interval included tests of recognition (recognition of faces, family names, first names, and nouns) and tests of recall (free recall of sentences, free recall and cued recall of nouns, and recall of activities). Results showed significant effects for both recall and recognition, that is, the smaller the sibship size is for an individual and the earlier born, the better memory performance. These results demonstrate that the effects of sibship size and birth order previously shown in children and adolescents (Belmont and Marolla, Science 182:1096–1101, 1973; Zajonc and Markus, Psych Rev 82:74–88, 1975; Zajonc, Am Psychol 56:490–496, 2001) are robust over time and hold over a large adult range.     

Lamenting the Golden Age: Love,Labour and Loss in the Collective Memory of Scientists

Abstract

Academic science is often described as having a moral economy underpinned by curiosity, creativity and a love of the subject. It is also described as having a political economy tied to national programmes for socio-economic growth. According to many writers, in recent decades those moral and political economies have become disconnected through greater managerial, audit and commercial practices pervading the academy. Classic ideals of professional norms and ethos have been eroded in these new economically incentivised environments. Biomedical scientists working at a major UK university echoed these sentiments, lamenting a lost ‘golden age’ of science characterised by intellectual freedom, serendipitous discovery and a love of doing science. In practice, their lamentation serves as a myth and expresses a key tension in pursuing science as a job and as a vocation. Playing a performative role in scientists' own self-understanding, the myth not only underwrites scientific identity, but also supports research management by demarcating ‘science’ from the practices that manage, measure and commercialise it. The ‘golden age’ emerges as a significant explanatory narrative in contemporary science. It embodies a moral economy that is detached from its institutional contexts, and thus unable to resolve the inequalities and tensions produced through the political economy that relies on it.     

Body Consciousness Across the Adult Years: Variations with Actual and Subjective Age

Age-related trends and predictors were explored with respect to three dimensions of adults’ body consciousness. Consistent with the notion that aging adults’ perceptions of their bodies are multidimensional and multidirectional, adults reported being more concerned about their external physical appearance (public body consciousness), more aware of their internal body sensations (private body consciousness), and more positive in their self-evaluations of their bodies (body competence). Moreover, consistent with the claim that such attitudes are multi-determined, the present research found that aging adults’ personal anxiety about aging and their subjective age identities were significant predictors of variations in their body consciousness. Moreover, the predictive value of these psychological variables rivaled the predictive value of chronological age.

积极道德情绪和年龄对3-5岁幼儿安慰行为的影响

大量研究已经表明,消极道德情绪可以促进幼儿的亲社会行为,但积极道德情绪对幼儿亲社会行为的促进作用仍然缺乏全面探索。安慰行为是幼儿的典型亲社会行为,本研究使用实验法,采取想象启动和实际启动两种范式,考察积极道德情绪对3-5岁257名幼儿的安慰行为的影响。研究发现,幼儿的安慰行为发展具有年龄特征,4岁是幼儿安慰行为发展的转变关键期,更有意义的是,研究证明积极道德情绪对幼儿的安慰行为具有促进效应。本研究结果能为有效培养儿童的安慰行为提供有益建议。     

The Loss of Aging Identity: Social Theory, Old Age, and the Power of Special Hospitals

Medical and health languages have emerged as master narratives used to police the identities that older offenders adopt in contemporary special hospitals such as Broadmoor, Rampton, and Ashworth, in the United Kingdom. Both contain continually changing technologies that function to mediate relations between older offenders and special hospitals. Medical and institutional discourses have been presented as reducing limitations associated with psychiatric disorders. This represents an increase in professional control that can be exerted on inmates' lifestyles in special hospitals which extends to the surveillance and governance of older persons in such secure settings. It is evident that the use of the indeterminate sentence, compulsory treatment prevents older offenders from rehabilitation. The process of treatment is to transform, discipline and normalize their behavior. In order to achieve normalization, coercive forms of treatment are invoked from informal social rules to the use and overuse of psychothropic drugs. Mentally disordered older offenders are placed under the gaze of perpetual surveillance but find ways of negotiating, resisting, and subverting that gaze. Furthermore, this article illuminates how the aging body and the use of time become other sources of punishment, which are pivotal to the structural organization of secure settings in the United Kingdom.     

Postmodern Aging and the Loss of Meaning

This article reviews several authors' perspectives on the advantages and disadvantages of a global postmodern society and its effect on the affluent and not-so-affluent elderly. Without the socioeconomic supports of the past, the not-so-affluent elderly may find themselves insecure and anxious about their core identity in a postmodern world, while the affluent elderly with the resources to consume postmodern society's growing array of medical procedures, technological devices, etc. may benefit from the multiple, shifting identities characteristic of postmodern culture. Without recognition of what aging has to teach us about the human condition, several authors see a loss of existential/spiritual meaning in postmodern society.     

全球化时代跨界民族国家认同的心理机制

全球化迅速改变着传统的生活方式和观念, 影响着人们的国家认同建构。跨界民族的国家认同具有复杂性、模糊性和不稳定性, 在全球化时代受到的冲击更大。一旦跨界民族的国家认同偏低, 就会影响跨界民族的国家情感, 危及边疆地区甚至国家的社会稳定。本项目拟通过4个研究, 预期实现以下目标：①将国家认同分成文化认同和公民认同两种成分, 并编制符合民族实际状况的跨界民族国家认同问卷; ②探讨民族认同、穆斯林认同在群际歧视知觉与国家认同间的中介作用; ③理清民族内隐理论对国家认同的影响; ④探讨管理体制、民生政策、经济发展水平和民族政策对国家认同的影响, 并尝试建立跨界民族国家认同数据库, 及时把握跨界民族国家认同的动态建构过程。研究结果对完善民族政策、开展宣传教育具有一定的指导意义。     

Modernity and Identity: Themes and Perspectives in the Study of Older Adults

Developments in social gerontology have led to an increased awareness of the relationship between political economy, culture, and personal narrative as influences on social identity in later life. Central to this debate has been a growing interest in lifestyle choice as evidence of a change from modern to postmodern forms of aging. A key component of this process has been the erosion of a predictable framework for an aging identity, previously supplied by the welfare state. It is argued that, alongside the emergence of no-care zones in health and welfare, postmodern ideas on consumerism and the body have led to an assault on identity in old age. As a result, we may be seeing the emergence of no-identity zones which fail to sustain an authentic framework for supporting experiences in old age. A critical gerontology should include the study of identity as central to understanding the disjunction between aging from within and aging within society.