Successful aging: a developmental approach

Like goodness, truth, and other human ideals, successful aging may appeal more than it illuminates. It is an image that attracts human interest but defies easy or consensual definition. As growing numbers of people anticipate a long old age, the meaning of successful aging takes on even greater importance. Formulations of the concept become standards by which individuals evaluate themselves and others, as well as visions toward which to strive. In attempting to advance understanding of how these years might be fully experienced, this article examines previous perspectives on successful aging and presents a new alternative. The aim is to illustrate how a developmental orientation adds new challenges and dimensions to the task of growing old successfully. Previous Approaches to Successful Aging Four dimensions of successful aging were proposed in the Kansas City Studies of Adult Life: the amount of activity in which the individual engaged, the ability to disengage, satisfaction with life, and maturity or integration of personality. Williams and Wirths (1965) later derived two additional views of successful aging: a balanced exchange of energy between the individual and the social system, and a stable social system. Of these various formulations, life satisfaction became the most frequently investigated dimension of successful aging. Life satisfaction included the components of zest versus apathy, resolution and fortitude, relationships between desired goals and achieved goals, self-concept, and mood tone (Neugarten, Havighurst, & Tobin, 1961). A vast body of gerontological research was generated by this early formulation, so much so that life satisfaction has been described as the most widely studied variable in the field of aging (Maddox & Wiley, 1976). The abundance of empirical work elaborated and differentiated the concept of life satisfaction far beyond its initial definition. Thus, in addition to the original dimensions, successful aging