Successful ageing can be referred to as ‘how well an individual ages by being free from ill health, actively engaging with life and having high cognitive and physical functioning’ (Kernisan, 2018). Many different psychologists have looked into the subject, making it a heavily researched topic, focusing on different factors or traits that can impact how successful one may age, and what it actually means to age successfully.
Rowe and Kahn (1987, 1997, 1998) conceptualised the successful ageing paradigm. They took a biopsychosocial model, encompassing health, social engagement and cognition. They believed that usual ageing and successful ageing could be differentiated, suggesting that usual ageing ‘referred to non pathological but higher risk individuals’ and successful ageing ‘referred to lower risk and higher functioning individuals’ (Katz and Calasanti, 2014). They proposed that successful ageing could be a result of maintaining an appropriate lifestyle and that it could be ‘defined as; forestalling disease and disability; maintaining physical and mental function; social engagement’ (Rowe and Kahn, 1998). This hypothesis puts forwards the idea that successful ageing is not only defined as an ‘absence of or avoidance of disease’ but also to ‘include cognitive and social factors’. The theory therefore suggests that in order to be able to achieve successful ageing ‘full engagement in life, including productive activities and interpersonal relations’ (Rowe, 1997) must occur. Their paradigm is therefore made up of; good physical health; being able to retain cognitive abilities; continuing engagement in social and productive activities; having a subjective sense of life satisfaction; viewing old age in terms of variability rather than universal decline.
Rowe and Kahn’s theory was criticised by Riley for ‘not taking into account the fact that ‘changes in life and changes in social structures are fundamentally interdependent’ and thus neglecting ‘the dependence of successful ageing upon structural opportunities’’ (Kahn, 1998). Other criticisms of Rowe and Kahn’s theory comes from their proposal of there being a paradigm, this is due to it giving the impression that effects of ageing are under one’s control, this is not always the case as it is imperative one will go through stages of ageing and will show this in some way, whether it be through decline in muscle and bone strength or our skin becoming wrinkly and loose. As well as this, it is thought to potentially be a new kind of ageist stereotype.
‘By the phrase ‘adding life to years’ we mean helping people to enjoy life, and to get a satisfaction form life’ (Havighurst, 1961). This suggests that successful ageing isn’t to do with the length of ones life but instead living for a prolonged period of time with a high quality, his ideas agree with those succumbed by Rowe and Kahn. Havighurst suggests that ‘a theory of successful ageing is a statement of the conditions of individual and social life under which the individual person gets a maximum satisfaction and happiness and society maintains appropriate balance among satisfactions for the various groups which make it up’. This suggestion comes from his realisation that what an individual finds satisfying differs from one to the other, for example, one person may gain full satisfaction by being able walk to the shops each week, whereas another individual may get full satisfaction by being able to sit in their armchair everyday. Furthering on this, Havighurst believed there to be two contrasting theories of successful ageing and proposed that these were ‘the activity theory’ and ‘the disengagement theory’. The activity theory is the ability to maintain the greatest possible level of activity and involvement in the greatest number of roles, this could be a person who receives satisfaction from often going on long walks. Other individuals who fit under this theory may start to take on new roles by organising coffee mornings, joining new groups or by learning new skills. The disengagement theory is the withdrawal of elders from society for mutual benefit, with societal activities being passed from old to young, hence reducing their social burdens. Such elders may lose touch with friends after reaching retirement age and withdraw themselves to their own home.
The idea of an individuals level of satisfaction with their life links in well with Eriksons ego integrity vs despair stage. The ego integrity half of this stage looks at how the elders will feel whole and satisfied with their achievements, it is also a feeling of serenity and contentment. As this is associated with psychosocial maturity it is likely that an individual who goes through this will/has been able to successfully age. Erikson looked at reminiscence as being an essential part of life to help one achieve ego integrity and thus prepare for death. He proposed it to be a way of communicating older adult experiences to young individuals and as providing a foundation for life review. Researchers may view reminiscence as a negative experience as one may be more prone to depression if their life review produces more regrets over past mistakes and missed opportunities. Nevertheless, this stage in Erikson’s model still very much harmonises with Rowe and Kahn’s paradigm as well as Havighurst’s theories.
The Study of Adult Development at Harvard University lasted for 75 years and over the period WWII, it looks at different factors that are thought to influence how well someone ages. The Study is compromised of two individual studies; The Grant Study, which looks at a group of Harvard sophomores, known as the college cohort, and The Glueck Study, which looks at a group of non-delinquent schoolboys, known as the core-city cohort. Put together, the study believed there to be 12 influences on how successful one is at ageing and tested them to come up with the final result. The influences were; smoking; alcohol abuse; mature defences; stable marriage; BMI; regular exercise; education; depressive diagnosis; parental social class; childhood temperament; warmth of childhood; ancestral longevity. They then distributed the results into four categories of ageing, happy-well, intermediate, sad-sick and prematurely dead. The study found that the college cohort reached every stage of death and disability about 10 years later than the core-city cohort. The results show that education may have been a more robust cause of the differences between the rate of health decline in the two cohorts then other differences in socioeconomic status (Vaillant and Mukamal, 2001).
Bowling and Iliffe conducted a similar study looking at elderly people in the UK.
The Study of Adult Development is conducted in the US whereas Bowling and Iliffe is in the UK, suggesting that they are only representative of Western cultures. This therefore makes the question arise, can the theory of successful ageing be applied across all cultures? There isn’t much research on Eastern societies to be able to compare. Nevertheless, cross-sectional surveys on Chinese elders found similar results to studies conducted in Western societies, with education, housing, social network and support, spirituality and nutrition all to be factors having an impact on successful ageing (Nguyen and Seal, 2014). This adds to the idea of it being true across the world.