We drew from developmental theory regarding the timing of historical events in individuals' lives to examine age-related differences in self-reported masculine, feminine, and androgynous personality traits in a cross-sectional sample of American men (N=357) and women (N=404) representing six age groups (adolescents [12-17 years], younger [18-29 years], middle-aged [40][41][42][43][44][45][46][47][48][49][50][51][52][53][54][55][56][57][58][59], young-old [60-69], old-old [70][71][72][73][74][75][76][77][78][79], and oldest-old [80 and older] adults). Oldest-old women were less likely than younger and middle-aged women to endorse masculine and androgynous traits. Men in their 70s (old-old) were more likely than adolescents and younger men to endorse androgynous traits. Discussion of the results emphasizes the implications of the second wave of the women's movement for understanding life-span gender development.

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To investigate potential age-related differences in performance gains (compensation, optimization) and losses (failure to actualize potential) of collaboration with a familiar partner, we compared pairs of older (N= 75; 69% women) and younger (N = 75; 52% women) age homogeneous same-gender friends who interacted or worked alone to generate strategies for solving interpersonal and instrumental problems. Two indexes of strategy fluency (total and unique number of strategies) and two indexes of strategy type (content of strategy repertoires, strategy selected as most effective by older and younger adults) were examined. Strategies generated by interacting pairs were compared to nominal pair scores. Nominal pair scores indexed dyadic potential and were created by pooling the performance of two individuals who worked alone. Age differences in strategy fluency and type were largely similar to prior research based on individual problem solvers. Interacting pairs produced fewer strategies than nominal pairs but there were no differences in strategy type. For interpersonal problems, older adults were relatively more likely to actualize their dyadic potential. Keywordscollaborative cognition; nominal pairs; everyday problem solving; friends; aging Early research on "collaborative cognition" or "interactive minds" suggested older adults benefit more from working with a partner than do younger adults (Dixon, 1992;Staudinger & Baltes, 1996) Subsequent research addressed whether collaboration serves a compensatory function by allowing older adults to offset age-related cognitive declines (Dixon & Gould, 1998;Strough & Margrett, 2002). Some investigations of compensatory collaboration compared spouses to strangers. Older heterosexual spouses usually (but not always) outperform strangers on memory tasks (Johannson, Andersson, & Rönnberg, 2000; cf., Gould, Osborn, Krein, & Mortenson, 2002). Other investigations of compensatory collaboration compared memory performance in younger spouses to older spouses (e.g., Dixon & Gould, 1998). The focus on spouses and memory performance limits the generalizability of research on collaborative cognition. A spouse may not be available due to divorce, death, marital discord or because the person never married. Research with young adults indicates collaboration between friends on memory tasks can be beneficial (Andersson & Rönnberg, 1996, 1997.Correspondence concerning this article should be sent to JoNell Strough, Department of Psychology, West Virginia University, Morgantown, WV 26506−6040. Email may be sent to JoNell.Strough@mail.wvu.edu.. Jennifer Flinn is now at Frostburg State University, Department of Psychology. Kelly Schuller is now at the College of Charleston, Department of Psychology. Publisher's Disclaimer:The following manuscript is the final accepted manuscript. It has not been subjected to the final copyediting, fact-checking, and proofreading required for formal publication. It is not the definitive, publisher-authenticated version. The American Psychological Associa...

for their support and encouragement over the past few years as I worked on this project. My thanks to all of you.

for their time and their valuable suggestions. I also want to thank Sarah Stahl and Cory-Ann Smarr for their assistance with the coding process and for being so generous with their time. Finally, I would like to thank Kelly Schuller, Loriann Sonntag, Jenny Hartley, and Clare Mehta for their support and encouragement over the past few years as I worked on this project. My thanks to all of you.