Residential Normalcy and the Enriched Coping Repertoires of Successfully Aging Older Adults

Abstract

An earlier theoretical model equated the construct of residential normalcy with older persons positively appraising their residential environments. Failing to achieve congruent places to live, they initiate assimilative (action) or accommodative (mind) coping strategies. This paper theorizes that the assimilative coping strategies of older persons depend on their secondary appraisal processes whereby they judge the availability, efficaciousness, and viability of their coping options. Older persons with more enriched coping repertoires are theorized as more resilient, making their own decisions, and with access to more resource-rich objectively defined resilient environments. Successful aging formulations infrequently examine how residential environmental adaptations of people influence the quality of their lives. Programmatically, the theory emphasizes the potential of individual and environmental interventions targeting older persons who are not aging successfully.

Resilience in context: the special case of advanced age

“…With increasing age, control over external events is decreased (Lachman, Rosnick, & Rocke, 2009) and may be reflected in a reduction of assimilative (active) coping as the costs required to actively cope are perceived as too high to bear (Golant, 2015). The more emotion-focused coping style employed by the oldest-old (accommodative coping) seems to be most effective for events where problem-focused coping options are few; such events may be more likely in very advanced age.…”

居住常态理论和美国老年人就地养老行为分析①

“…Consequently, older people may experience several new residential normals over their lives. As I emphasized earlier (Golant, 2015a):…”

“…Consequently, most researchers of the housing conditions of older Americans prematurely end their analyses after they find that their sample of respondents occupy poor quality residential environments. The residential normalcy theory argues that this static perspective is unrealistic (Golant, 2015a). At various times over their lifetimes, older people may find themselves in residential situations that are inconsistent with their lifestyles or capabilities.…”

“…4.4 Why do some aging in place older people cope more successfully with their problems? The residential normalcy model theorizes that older people must engage in a secondary appraisal process (Lazarus et al, 1984) to decide on how they might eliminate or alleviate their incongruent places of residence (Golant, 2015a). However, these deliberations result in some older people initiating more successful adaptive strategies.…”

Aging in rural communities: Older persons’ narratives of relocating in place to maintain rural identity

“…Researchers also suggest there may be more ambivalence as the oldest old, those 85 years of age or older, move (Löfqvist, Granbom, Himmelsbach, Iwarsson, Oswald & Haak, 2013) and that research is needed about institutional moves (such as those to assisted or skilled care facilities; Perry, Andersen & Kaplan, 2014). Golant (2015) offers residential normalcy theory, which sees the choice to relocate as a process. Like earlier models of person-environment fit, the older person assesses the way his or her current living situation meets his or her needs and how well he or she can cope with unmet needs in that current setting (Granbom, Himmelsbach, Haak, Löfqvist, Oswald & Iwarsson, 2014).…”