Unveiling the Social Life of SuperAgers: A Narrative Review of Social Profiles of Exceptional Cognitive Aging

Abstract

SuperAging deserves special attention from researchers in the field of the psychology of aging, because it denotes the preservation of multiple cognitive abilities in very old age. Currently, very little is known about lifestyle factors that could be related to SuperAging. The main goal of the present narrative review was to bring together available evidence involving social factors related to SuperAging and to target avenues for future research. The review summarizes the findings of studies published between 2005 and 2022. Low social participation in midlife age and high social participation in older age were found to be related to SuperAging. In contrast, social network size and diversity did not differ between SuperAgers and cognitively normal older adults. The synthesis of the results indicates that having positive, close, high-quality relationships and a high frequency of social contact may be considered to be hypothetical predictors of superior cognitive performance in later life.