Dr. Carolyn M. Aldwin
Longevity inevitably must address old people at some point. Just what makes a person old? We learned that categorically, anyone approaching sixty-five might as well get familiar with being tagged “old.” Maybe one’s already enjoying some Senior Discount moments. We may have felt old when turning twenty-one, yet this advanced experience of old travels way beyond the impact of first being addressed as “Ma’am” or “Mister.”
Much of our ideas about the elderly come from our own aged relatives or neighbors who in turn may have been influenced by cultural studies done in the 1970’s and early 80’s. One way of being old is generalized to the majority. If everyone says that’s the way things are there’s a tendency to fulfill that picture: If older means decrepit, get decrepit.
Dr. Carolyn Aldwin of the Center for Healthy Aging Research/OSU, Corvallis, pointed out that “Ellen Langer did studies showing that people tend to model themselves on people who were old when they were young—so negative role models begat rapid aging, while positive models can beget more optimal aging.”
Additionally, according to Dr. Aldwin, the old people used for research in the 1970’s and 1980’s were mainly from institutions. This is a well-defined population and a fairly lurid picture was created describing what being elderly is all about.
The picture resulting from those earlier studies suggested old people were depressed, miserable, suicidal, lonely and cognitively impaired. One can imagine cantankerous added in personal notes. Not anything to greet with glee, for sure.
In 1982 Dr. Aldwin happened to gain access to 20,000 elders living at Leisure World retirement community. (Unable to move into her rental apartment after graduation, her uncle lent her his place while he was traveling for six weeks.) Leisure World provided a very different picture from established research standings. These older people were not particularly unhappy, nor depressed, suicidal, lonely, or mentally challenged.
Being a social scientist already studying aging and stress factors, Aldwin went on to develop an elder life-stress inventory relevant to the target age group. Further study indicates the elderly are actually no more stressed than younger people in terms of life events. And in terms of daily hassles older people may be less stressed.
How can that be? Old people have lost loved ones to death, usually, their bodies manifest complaints undreamed of twenty years earlier and there’s no lengthy future in sight. Old people have wrinkles, hair (if there is much) in odd places, suspicious teeth, poor job prospects, and are generally overlooked.
Well. Dr. Aldwin’s discovered that older people quite often say (19%) they “had no problems.” It’s hard to imagine younger adults saying the same thing. Aldwin believes one reason older people report LESS stress is that they’re more efficient at handling stress. They have to be more efficient since they have less energy.
Most older people have also learned more effective appraisal processes—figuring out how upset to get about what. They’ve learned not everything is worth the expenditure or cost associated with getting riled. This development usually begins as people approach their thirties and forties. Perhaps the development can continue on and on for the rest of one’s time.
Next: What is optimal aging plus exhilarating ideas about aging/stress/coping.
Photo of Dr. Carolyn M. Aldwin courtesy of Oregon State University, Corvallis.
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