Living Well at Every Stage of Life 117

pencil-and-ink methods. She mastered new computerized design skills, yet

she did not experience the same creative satisfaction from this new way of
working. How could she continue to feel creative so as to derive pleasure
from her work? First, she had to identify exactly what she liked about the
creative process. After weeks of pondering, she came to the insight that
she enjoyed thinking about the design more than she enjoyed the actual
design process, whether it was on a notepad or a computer screen. Could
she convince her team leader to pay her to "think about design" rather than
to produce designs? At the beginning of a workday, when she was feeling
particularly gutsy, she floated the idea to her team leader, who looked
intrigued and relieved. It turned out that the team leader was trying to
figure out how to let Sarah know that some of the technical aspects of the
design work were going to be completed by people from another group
(who were much cheaper by the hour) and that the small cadre of current
designers was going to be asked to produce concepts for the young com-
puter-based artists. So, for the last 10 years of her career, Sarah envisions
that she will be paid for her ideas rather than her artwork. She also has
the pleasure of visiting with young graphic artists from around the
world. Although fairly confident of her career future, she continues to
anticipate changes in the greeting card industry that might shape her work
and her life.

Successful Aging

With the baby boomers joining the older adult group of Americans,
stories of successful aging are becoming more prominent in today's media.
The stories of older adults provide valuable lessons to all of us. This
was definitely the case in the life of Morrie Schwartz (the focus of Mitch
Alborn's 2002 book, Tuesdays with Morrie), who lived life to its fullest and
found great meaning during his physical decline and death.
The study of the positive aspects of aging (referred to as positive aging,
healthy aging, successful aging, and aging well) is only several decades old.
It will become a primary focus of psychological science, however, given
the trends in American demography that will demand the attentions of
scientists and the general public. Our goal for this section is to describe
successful aging based on the MacArthur Study of Successful Aging and
the prospective study by Vaillant (2002).

WHAT IS SUCCESSFUL AGING?

The term successful aging was popularized by Robert Havighurst

(1961) when he wrote about "adding life to years" (p. 8) in the first issue
118 POSITIVE PSYCHOLOGY IN CONTEXT

of The Gerontologist. Havighurst also primed scholarly interest in healthy

aspects of getting older. Rowe and Kahn (1998), summarizing the findings
from the MacArthur Study of Successful Aging, proposed three compo-
nents of successful aging: (1) avoiding disease, (2) engagement with life,
and (3) maintaining high cognitive and physical functioning. These three
components are aspects of «maintaining a lifestyle that involves normal,
valued, and beneficial activities" (Williamson, 2002, p. 681). Vaillant
(2002) simplifies the definition further by characterizing successful aging
as joy, love, and learning. These descriptions, though not detailed, provide
an adequate image of successful aging.

THE MAcARTHUR FOUNDATION

STUDY OF SUCCESSFUL AGING

The MacArthur Foundation Study of Successful Aging (which ran from

1988 to 1996) was conducted by John Rowe and a multidisciplinary group
of colleagues. They investigated physical, social, and psychological factors
related to abilities, health, and well-being. A sample of 1189 healthy adult
volunteers between the ages of 70 and 79 was selected from a pool of 4030
potential participants, using physical and cognitive criteria. These high-
functioning adults participated in a 90-minute personal interview and
then were followed for an average of 7 years, during which time they
completed periodic interviews.
As mentioned previously, the MacArthur study revealed that the three
components of successful aging were avoiding disease, engaging with life,
and maintaining physical and cognitive functioning (Rowe & Kahn, 1998).
Here, we focus on life engagement because it is the component of success-
ful aging that positive psychologists are most likely to address in their
research and practice. Indeed, the two components of life engagement,
social support and productivity (Rowe & Kahn), parallel the life pursuits
of love, work, and play that we address in many of the chapters in this
book.
Social support is most potent when it is mutual; the support given is
balanced by support received. Two kinds of support are important for suc-
cessful aging: socioemotional support (liking and loving) and instrumen-
tal support (assistance when someone is in need). Further examination of
the MacArthur data revealed that support increased over time (Gurung,
Taylor, & Seeman, 2003). Moreover, the respondents with more social ties
showed less decline in functioning over time (Unger, McAvay, Bruce,
Berkman, & Seeman, 1999). The positive effects of social ties were shown
to vary according to the individual's gender and baseline physical capabil-
ities (Unger et al.). Gender also influenced how married participants
(a 439-person subset of the total sample) received social support: «Men
Living Well at Every Stage of Life 119

received emotional support primarily from their spouses, whereas women

drew more heavily on their friends and relatives and children for emo-
tional support" (Gurung et al., p. 487).
Regarding productive activity in later adulthood, Glass et al.
(1995) examined patterns of change in the activities of the highly func-
tioning sample of 70-to-79-year-olds and in a group of 162 moderate-
to-low-functioning 70-to-79-year-olds over a 3-year period. The
highest functioning cohort was found to be significantly more produc-
tive than the comparison group. Changes in productivity over time
were associated with more hospital admissions and strokes, whereas age,
marriage, and increased mastery of certain skills were related to greater
protection against declines. These findings are consistent with the work
of Williamson (2002), who suggests that sustained physical activity (an
aspect of productive activity) helps to maintain healthy functioning.
Accordingly, interruptions of physical activity regimens often precipitate
declines in overall well-being.

THE ADULT DEVELOPMENT STUDY

Vaillant (2002) acknowledges that subjective evaluation of functioning

is not the most rigorous approach to identifying those who age success-
fully. He has relied on a system of independent evaluations of the func-
tioning (e.g., physical, psychological, occupational) of the participants in
the Study of Adult Development. The original 256 Caucasian, socially
advantaged participants were identified in the late 1930s by the deans at
Harvard (who viewed the students as sound in all regards). For the past
80 years, these participants have been studied via physical examinations,
personal interviews, and surveys. More than 80% of the study partici-
pants lived past their 80th birthdays, whereas only 30% of their contem-
poraries lived to that age. His extensive study of these older adults (and
members of two other prospective studies) identified the following
lifestyle predictors of healthy aging: not smoking, or stopping smoking
while young; coping adaptively, with mature defenses; not abusing alco-
hol; maintaining a healthy weight, a stable marriage, and some exercise;
and being educated. These variables distinguished people on the ends of
the health spectrum: The happy-well (62 individuals who experienced
good health objectively and subjectively, biologically and psychologi-
cally) and the sad-sick (40 individuals who were classified as unhappy in
at least one of three dimensions: mental health, social support, or life
satisfaction.) The most robust predictor of membership in the happy-
well group versus the sad-sick group was the extent to which people
used mature psychological coping styles (e.g., altruism, humor) in every-
day life.
 120 POSITIVE PSYCHOLOGY IN CONTEXT

One Man's View of Aging

Contrary to all expectations, I seem to grow happier as I grow older. I think that
America has been sold on that theory that youth is marvelous but old age is
terror. On the contrary, it's taken me 60 years to learn how to live reasonably well,
to do my work and cope with my inadequacies.
For me, youth was a woeful time-sick parents, war, relative poverty, the mis-
eries of learning a profession, a mistake of a marriage, self-doubts, booze, and
blundering around. Old age is knowing what I am doing, the respect of others, a
relatively sane financial base, a loving wife, and the realization that what I can't
beat, I can endure.

Source: Vaillant (2002, p. 14).

- It< "* :!l. !I~ Perhaps prediction of successful aging is not as complex as the
.
....
.;; -~,(' "~'"
,"

MacArthur studies and Vaillant make it out to be. What if successful aging,
..-"I -~ ~f

"'" or at the very least longevity, boils down to experiencing positive emo-
tions in early life? Danner, Snowdon, and Friesen (2001), in their study of
the autobiographies of 180 Catholic nuns written in early 20th century,
Nuns demonstrated that positive emotional content in the writings was inversely
Source: © Corbis. correlated with risk of mortality 60 years later. These nuns, who had seem-
ingly had a lifestyle conducive to successful aging, were more likely to live
past their 70th and 80th birthdays if they had told stories of their lives that
were laden with positive emotions many decades before.
The body of research on successful aging is growing quickly, and the find-
ings suggest that people have more control over the quality of their lives dur-
ing the aging process than we once believed. Furthermore, across studies,
social support is the one of the psychological factors that promotes success-
ful aging. Despite this communality, as more cross-cultural research is con-
ducted and published, it appears that aging and successful aging may vary
depending on the particular nations studied. Therefore, successful aging
should not be measured against a universal standard (Baltes & Carstensen,
1996). This suggests that future work should consider the cultural aspects of
adaptive aging in pursuing clues to the good life in the later years.

A More Developmental Focus I n Positive Psychology

We face daily hassles and adversities. This is true during childhood,

adolescence, adulthood, and older adulthood. Hopefully, as we age, we
become more resourceful and adaptable. This appears to be the case
Living Well at Every Stage of Life 121

because there are numerous posItive developmental factors that help

children and adults to bounce back. The findings discussed in this chapter
also suggest that positive psychology is well on its way to identifying and
sharing meaningful information about how to live a better life. Try the
Personal Mini-Experiments to bring some of these findings to life.

Finding Amazing People of All Ages

In this chapter, we discuss many of the factors that promote healthy development
over the life span. Here are a few ideas that might help you discover the positive in
people of all ages.

Testing the Effectiveness of Your Mentorship: According to resilience research, a

warm relationship with one caring adult can bring out the positive in children and
youth. The effectiveness of your own mentorship can be tested out through your
ongoing work with Big Brothers and Big Sisters or another community-based men-
toring program. A true test would involve giving 3 to 4 hours a week to one child
and tracking the child's development over time by considering the enhancement of
resources listed in Table 6.2.

Building a Stronger Social Circle: Several of the life tasks of adults are related to
developing a stronger social network. Consider the state of your own social network.
Draw four concentric circles. In the middle circle, write "Me," and then fill in the
remaining circles with the names of the people to whom you give your time and
talents on a regular basis; the closer the names are to the center circle, the closer
these people are to you. Consider how you can maintain the people in the ci rcl es
closest to you and bring the other folks closer to you. When you have identified a
few strategies, end the exercise by acting on one of your thoughts and giving your
time or talent to someone close to you.

Collecting Stories of Aging Well: Every day, you encounter people 60 and older.
Some of these folks are exuberant; they could be members of Vaillant's happy-well
group. Approach five of these people, and ask them if they would be willing to
participate in a brief interview. (Tell them that you have just learned about success-
ful aging and you would like to develop a better understanding of how people live
well as they age.) Here are some questions you can ask (derived from Dr. Vaillant's
Scale of Objective Mental Health, 2002, p. 342):

• How well are you enjoying your career/retirement?

• How would you describe your last vacation?
• What personal relationships have been important to you since you turned 50?
Please describe the most important one.

Log your responses to these questions, and attempt to draw conclusions about
successful aging in your community from these five interviews.
122 POSITIVE PSYCHOLOGY IN CONTEXT

Although much is known about how to thrive during each decade of

our lives, the next generation of positive psychologists (you and your
peers) has many questions to answer regarding topics such as positive
adult development and making successful aging possible for more people.
Furthermore, more theory and research are needed to help us understand
how each human strength is manifested and to describe how culture
shapes a given strength and its potency over time. If positive psychology is
to grow as a field, we believe that it is crucial to understand the unfolding
developmental processes from childhood to older age.

Key Terms

Career consolidation: A life task that requires the development of a

social identity and engagement in a career characterized by contentment,
compensation, competence, and commitment.
External adaptation: A person's ability to meet the social, education, and
occupational expectations of society.
Generativity: A life task that requires one to "give the self away" and
expand one's social circle. This may include mentoring the next generation
of adults.
Identity: A life task that requires one to develop one's own views, values,
and interests instead of simply reflecting the beliefs of one's parents or
others.
Instrumental support: Support that involves giving assistance or help
when needed.
Integrity: A life task that requires one to cultivate contentment with life
and sense of peace. Often accompanied by increased spirituality.
Internal adaptation: A person's ability to achieve emotional and psycho-
logical well-being.
Intimacy: A life task that requires one to develop an interdependent,
committed, and close relationship with another person.
Keeper of meaning: A life task that engenders perspective on the workings
of the world and of people and that is characterized by a willingness to
share this wisdom with others. The keeper of meaning is seen as linking
the present and the past by protecting traditions and rituals and passing
them on to the next generation.
Positive youth development: Positive, healthy youth development is marked
by the attainment of nine outcomes: (1) bonding; (2) social, emotional,