Chapter 18Social and Personality Development in

Late Adulthood

I. Personality Development and Successful Aging

Continuity and Change in Personality

Agreeableness, satisfaction, intellect, extroversion, and energy (the "Big Five" personality traits) remain relatively stable throughout adulthood.

Due to changes in social environments that tend to occur during late adulthood, individual personality traits can and do change over time.

Ego Integrity vs. Despair

Erikson explains that late adulthood is marked by a crisis between ego integrity and despair as older adults are looking back over their lives, evaluating it and coming to terms with it.

Those who successfully resolve the crisis, experience a sense of satisfaction and accomplishment; those who do not resolve the crisis successfully, look back on their lives with dissatisfaction and may be unhappy, depressed, angry, or despondent.

Erikson’s Theory

Ego Integrity vs. Feel whole, complete,

satisfied with achievements.

Serenity and contentment.

Associated with psychosocial maturity.

Despair Feel many decisions

were wrong, but now time is too short.

Bitter and unaccepting of coming death.

Expressed as anger and contempt for others.

Peck’s Developmental TasksPeck suggests that there are three major

developmental challenges that occur in late adulthood:The first task is redefinition of self versus

preoccupation with work; individuals must redefine themselves in ways that are unrelated to their careers (i.e., by adjusting their value systems to achieve a self-concept and sense of self-esteem in which work is not involved).

Peck’s Developmental Tasks

The second challenge is body transcendence versus body preoccupation; people must learn to cope with and move beyond physical changes so as not to come preoccupied with physical deterioration.

Peck’s Developmental Tasks

The third challenge is ego transcendence versus ego preoccupation; people must come to grips with their coming death so as to experience ego transcendence and to avoid feeling that their lives had no value to society.

Levinson’s Final Season

Levinson suggests that as people enter late adulthood, they come to view themselves as being old and struggle with the thought they are entering an age range about which there is a negative stereotype.

People experiencing this transition can run into difficulties when they realize that their age has caused a loss of power, respect, and authority.

This transition can be more positive for those who think of themselves as people who can offer advice: “venerate elders”.

Coping with Age

Neugarten explains that there are four different personality types associated with old age:

Disintegrated and disorganized personalities: are unable to accept aging and experience despair as they age; often end up in nursing homes or are hospitalized.

Passive-dependent personalities: lead lives filled with fear of getting sick and their inability to cope; seek out help even when they don’t need it.

Coping with Age

Defended personalities: seek to ward off aging; attempt to act young, exercise vigorously and engage in youthful activities; may feel disappointed when expectations are not met.

Integrated personalities: cope successfully with aging; accept becoming older and maintain their sense of self dignity.

Life Review

Most personality theorists include in their explanations of late adulthood the characteristic of life review.

Life review is thought to be triggered by the prospect of one’s death.

By reviewing one’s life, people often come to a better understanding of their past.

Life review can lead to a sense of connection to others and can be a source of social interaction

Life review can serve to improve one’s memory.Some may become obsessed with reliving the past and end

up feeling guilty, depressed and angry.

Successful Aging: Disengagement TheoryDisengagement theory explains that people in late adulthood begin to

gradually withdraw from the world on physical, psychological, and social levels.The withdrawal is mutual as society also begins to disengage from older

people.Withdrawal has largely positive consequences—disengagement allows

people to become more reflective about their lives, become more discerning about their social relationships, invest less in social relationships leaving them better able to cope with serious illness and death.

While the findings of some studies support or partially support disengagement theory, others do not.

Successful Aging: Activity TheoryActivity theory suggests that those who are most likely to

be happy in late adulthood are those who are active and involved in the world.

The theory suggests that in late adulthood, people should continue to participate in their social worlds.

Critics of this theory address issues which the theory tends to ignore which are that some activities are better than others in perpetuating happiness.

Successful Aging: Continuity TheoryContinuity theory is a compromise between disengagement

theory and activity theory.The theory claims that people need to maintain their desired

level of activity and involvement in society to maximize well-being.

Behavior prior to late adulthood is associated with whether one is active or disengaged and if one is happy with one’s status (e.g., people who were active when younger, will be highly satisfied with being active in late adulthood).

Social Theories of Aging

Disengagement Theory

Mutual withdrawal of elders and society.

Activity TheorySocial barriers cause declining interaction

Continuity Theory

Social networks become more selective with age

Emphasize certain functions of social contact

A Model of Successful Aging

According to Baltes and Baltes, people can overcome the changes and losses in the underlying capabilities that are common in late adulthood through selective optimization, a process by which people concentrate on skill areas to make up for losses in others.

Elderly people also engage in compensation for losses they have experienced due to aging.

II. The Daily Life of Late Adulthood

Living Arrangements

Elderly people live in a variety of settings: some live alone, most live with family members in most cases they live with their spouse

living with a spouse brings continuitymoving in with their children can cause disruption to roles

and disagreements about lifestylesfor some groups, extended family living is more commonsome elderly people live in specialized environments such

as continuing care facilities, adult day-care facilities, or skilled-nursing facilities

some elderly feel a loss of control when placed in specialized settings which can have a profound effect on their sense of well-being; learned helplessness can even lead to death.

Financial Issues

If you were well off financially as a younger person, you will likely be well-off as an older person and if you were financially challenged as a younger person, so will you be as an older person.

The social inequities that exist however are more pronounced in late adulthood.

11 percent of people in their late adulthood live in poverty.More elderly women than men live in poverty often as a result

of becoming a widow and paying for her husband’s illness, death/funeral arrangements, and due to a limited pension fund.

Elderly African Americans are more likely to live in poverty than Hispanics who are more likely than whites.

Due to inflation and rising health care costs, fixed incomes are rarely suitable to meet the economic needs of elderly people.

Work in Late AdulthoodMany people work full-

or part-time in their late adulthood.

Although illegal, many of these elderly workers face age discrimination despite the fact that there is little evidence that the ability to perform one’s job declines with old age.

Some, in fact, make their greatest contributions to their job during late adulthood.

Retirement in Late Adulthood

Although people choose to retire for a variety of reasons, there are commonalties in the experiences people have in retirement:

The first stage is the honeymoon stage during which people engage in activities that were not able to do while they worked.

The second stage is the disenchantment stage, during which people feel that retirement is not all they expected it to be.

Retirement in Late Adulthood

The third stage is the reorientation stage, during which people reconsider their options and become engaged in new activities.

If successful, they enter the fourth stage which is the retirement routine stage, during which people come to grips with realities and feel fulfilled by this new phase of life.

The fifth stage is the termination stage, during which people end retirement by going back to work or because they have become incapable of caring for themselves due to physical deterioration.

III. Relationships:

Old and New

Marriage in the Last Years

Since women tend to outlive their husbands and do not tend to get remarried.

The number of men who are married in late adulthood outnumbers the number of women.

The marriage gradient is still in effect in late adulthood keeping more women than men single.

Most couples who are married in later life are satisfied with their marriage.

Elderly married people indicate that their spouse brings them companionship and emotional support.

Marriage in the Last Years

There are stresses on the marriage in late adulthood such as when one or both mates decide to retire causing a shift in the nature of the relationship (i.e., evident in the role reversals that are common when married mates are both at home).

Divorce is not uncommon during this period, usually caused by the husband finding a younger women with whom he wants to share his life.

Often one spouse has to care for an ill or dying spouse; while this can be stressful, may spouses report feeling positive about being able to show their love and devotion with their ailing spouse.

Many spouses find themselves becoming widows during late adulthood.

Becoming Widowed

Death of a spouse can lead to profound sadness and drastic changes in one’s lifestyle.

Widows have to get used to their new role, no longer being viewed by society as a spouse.

Surviving spouses must learn to deal with independent living, often taking on chores and responsibilities that are new to them.

Widows face drastic changes in their social lives as married couples tend to socialize with other married couples.

Changes in financial situations can lead to big decisions such as selling a house and/or moving in with one’s children.

Adjusting to Widowhood

Heinemann and Evans suggest that there are three stages to adjusting to widowhood:

During the preparation stage, spouses prepare for the eventual day when their spouse dies and they will be alone; during this first phase, people learn adaptive behaviors, develop skills and abilities, and anticipate behavior they will need in the event of their spouses death.

During the grief and mourning phase, widows deal with the death of their spouse with feelings of shock, intense pain, grief, and testing with reality—the length of time spent in this phase depends on the degree of support received from others.

During the adaptation phase, the widow starts a new life by accepting one’s loss and continues with the reorganization of roles and creation of new friendships; this phase also includes the development of a new identity as a single person; there are vast individual differences at the rate in which a widow progresses through these phases.

The Social Networks of Late Adulthood

Friendships are important in late adulthood because, in maintaining and making friends, elderly people feel that they have some sense of control over their lives.

Friendships made in late adulthood are often more flexible than ties with family members as they can be less emotion-laden.

Friendships offer support when a spouse dies; friends provide social support, a basic social need that is critical in successful aging; social support is beneficial to the person who receives it and the person who offers it.

Friendships based on reciprocal caring are most effective and appropriate although, as the elderly person begins to show signs of deterioration, the friendships often become more asymmetrical.

Family Relationships

Siblings provide support during late adulthood as they often share the longest relationship with the elderly person and thereby offer great assistance as one ages.

Children tend to remain fairly close to their parents in late adulthood and it is most often adult children who care for their aging parents when assistance is required.

As elderly parents often have a greater developmental stake than their adult children, they often seek a closer relationship with their children than their children do with them.

Elderly parents tend to minimize conflicts with children while children, in an attempt to maintain autonomy, tend to maximize conflicts.

Grandchildren are also important to the healthy development of elderly people; the closeness and involvement of grandparents with their grandchildren tends to vary.

Elder AbuseElder abuse tends to occur in

situations where the elderly person is socially isolated and ailing and the caregiver feels burdened economically, psychologically and socially by the elderly person.