Successful Aging

Abstract

Life expectancy has only recently extended into old age. In many countries, declining proportions of working‐age people have to ensure adequate living conditions for a growing number of old people. To meet this challenge, societies need knowledge about positive or “successful” aging and conditions that foster them. In this chapter, we review the state of research on this topic. Early approaches focused on the question “ what is successful aging?” by outlining general criteria for aging well. More recent approaches have shifted the focus to the question “ how do people age successfully?” These models—e.g., the model of selection, optimization, and compensation (Baltes & Baltes, 1990), the model of assimilative and accommodative coping (Brandtstädter & Renner, 1990), or the model of primary and secondary control (e.g., Heckhausen & Schulz, 1995)—emphasize the role of proactive processes and motivational processes in shaping and adapting to age‐related changes. By adapting goals and standards to the changing availability of resources (e.g., health‐related decline), for example, older people can maintain a high level of functioning and well‐being. Hopefully, the identification of processes underlying successful aging will help to enhance the quality of older person's lives in the future.

Positive Development in Adolescence: The Development and Role of Intentional Self-Regulation

“…However, if the loss of functioning or means is not too pervasive, goals can often be maintained by using the process of compensation. Compensation involves similar means to optimization, such as practice, but in contrast to optimization, compensation actions are aimed at counteracting or avoiding losses in the face of a loss of goal-relevant means, rather than at approaching positive states [Freund & Baltes, 2002;Freund & Riediger, 2003;Wiese et al, 2000]. For example, if there is a loss in means to achieve an outcome (e.g., a person was absent from school for a period of time due to illness), the individual can seek alternative means to create an acceptable outcome (e.g., achieve a high score on a college entrance test), usually by acquiring new internal or external means (e.g., taking an extra class) or by activating unused resources (e.g., seeking the help of others).…”

More than Just a Simple Twist of Fate: Serendipitous Relations in Developmental Science

“…An individual must seize the opportunities that they identify in that unexpected event. This third serendipitous action is a ''mirror image'' of Baltes and colleagues' loss-based selection [e.g., Freund & Riediger, 2003]: instead of selecting a new goal based on experienced systemic losses or declines (as is the case with loss-based selection), the individual instead directs resources towards an unexpected, emergent goal based on the perception of possible systemic gains. In this serendipitous action, the individual therefore makes a ''gains-based selection,'' that is, he or she determines that the potential gains that could arise from pursuing this unexpectedly emergent goal warrant some initial and provisional investment of resources.…”

Psychological Consequences of Longevity

“…The second reason for an increase in the need for selfregulation is an increase in the time to live in good functional health after retirement as this life phase is characterized by fewer and unclear social expectations regarding which goals to pursue, and how to go about pursuing them. As argued by the SOC Freund/Nikitin/Ritter model, setting and pursuing personal goals might become particularly important for successful aging [Freund & Riediger, 2003].…”