Sources of Well-Being in Very Old Age

Smith, Jacqui; Fleeson, William; Geiselmann, Bernhard; Settersten, Richard A.; Kunzmann, Ute

doi:10.1017/cbo9780511586545.018

Cited by 85 publications

(104 citation statements)

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“…Quality of life is as a useful category in this perspective since subjective well-being can be regarded as a significant outcome of unequally distributed living conditions and opportunities for persons at different stages of their life course and born at different historical times or in different cultural and social environments. Social and behavioural research on ageing uses the concepts of ''quality of life'' and ''subjective well-being'' (quite often interchangeably) to refer to the subjective dimension of a good life as distinguished from a person's objective living conditions or available resources (Allardt 1975;Bulmahn 2002;Smith et al 1996Smith et al , 1999. Subjective quality of life can be considered as a reaction to experiences or living conditions which a person confronts over his or her life course (Diener 2000;Diener and Suh 1998;Diener et al 1999;Fahey and Smyth 2004;Filipp 2002;Noll and Scho¨b 2002), and it has been shown empirically that global satisfaction refers holistically to the entirety of one's own life situation, while specific evaluations refer to various life domains (Campbell et al 1976;Okun 2001).…”

Section: Quality Of Life As An Outcome Of Life Chancesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Social inequality in the later life: cross-national comparison of quality of life

2004

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This paper analyses quality of life and inequality in old age in an international comparative and a life course perspective. Quality of life is seen as an outcome of unequal chances in life. We distinguish between overall and domain specific expressions of quality of life which allows us to analyse the determinants of overall quality of life and their development over the life course. The data presented come from the research project ''OASIS -Old Age and Autonomy: The Role of Service Systems and Intergenerational Family Solidarity''. This data set is based on an age stratified random sample of the urban population (25-102 years) in Norway, England, Germany, Spain, and Israel (n=6,106). With advancing age, there are decreasing mean levels and increasing variation of quality of life. With age, the impact of physical health on overall quality of life increases, while the predictive power of other domains decreases. The results support the hypothesis of differentiation as well as the age-dependency hypothesis. For both these both aspects, international comparisons show similar results in different societies. These uniform age tendencies in modern European societies point to a limited importance of societal embeddedness and support the interpretation of age group differences as being life course effects.

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Section: Quality Of Life As An Outcome Of Life Chancesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Social inequality in the later life: cross-national comparison of quality of life

2004

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“…Research has demonstrated that, despite the difficult and often inevitable losses that result from aging, many older people maintain a subjective feeling of well-being (e.g., Diener & Suh, 1997;Kunzmann, Little, & Smith, 2000;Smith, Fleeson, Geiselmann, Settersten, & Kunzmann, 1999). P. Baltes and M. Baltes (1990) were among the first gerontologists to state that aging might be best conceptualized as a changing balance between gains and losses.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A review of successful aging models: Proposing proactive coping as an important additional strategy

Ouwehand

Ridder

Bensing

2007

Clinical Psychology Review

227

150

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Successful aging is an important concept, and one that has been the subject of much research. During the last 15 years, the emphasis of this research has shifted from formulating criteria for successful aging to describing the processes involved in successful aging. The main purpose of the present article is to review psychological models of successful aging. The model of Selective Optimization with Compensation (SOC-model) proves to be one of the leading models in this field. Although evidence about its value is accumulating, we argue that this model mainly focuses on how people react to losses and that proactive coping aimed at preventing potential threats to goals may also be a valuable strategy. We propose that proactive coping may be important for successful aging, since it results in a prolonged availability of resources for optimization and compensation processes and a delay in disengagement from important goals.

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“…In contrast, several studies provided empirical evidence of no age-related decline in subjective well-being (SWB) in old age (e.g. Larson, 1978;Herzog and Rodgers, 1981;Horley and Lavery, 1995;Smith et al, 1996;Diener and Suh, 1997). The absence of a negative age effect on SWB has been called a ''paradox'', and theoretical discussion has focussed on explanations for elder people's ability to maintain stable SWB under severe losses (Brandtsta¨dter and Greve, 1994;Baltes and Carstensen, 1996;Staudinger, 2000).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Development of Life Satisfaction in Old Age: Another View on the "Paradox''

Schilling

2006

Soc Indic Res

115

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ABSTRACT. Empirical evidence of no age-related decline in life satisfaction (LS) in old age contrasts with frequently observed declines in the objective quality of elder people's lives and has therefore been labelled a ''paradox'' and interpreted in terms of stability of LS in the respective gerontological discussion. However, as this evidence was mainly derived from cross-sectional age group comparisons, it does neither clearly indicate the absence of age-related mean level change, nor intra-individual stability of LS. Thus, the development of LS in middle and late adulthood was analysed longitudinally by using data from the German Socio-Economic Panel. Based on single item measures of LS across 16 repeated panel waves with one per annum (1984)(1985)(1986)(1987)(1988)(1989)(1990)(1991)(1992)(1993)(1994)(1995)(1996)(1997)(1998)(1999), autoregressive (quasi-Markov) structural equation models were used to estimate true score variances and intra-individual true score stability in oneyear intervals. Research questions concerned (a) ''monotonic'' stability and variance in a subsample of old respondents (born before 1925) as compared to the total sample and (b) change in stability and variances in old age. Results indicate high ''monotonic'' true score stability of LS over the whole adult life span, whereas mean levels declined slightly in old age. No striking evidence for age-related changes in variance or stability was found.

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Sources of Well-Being in Very Old Age

Cited by 85 publications

References 0 publications

Social inequality in the later life: cross-national comparison of quality of life

Social inequality in the later life: cross-national comparison of quality of life

A review of successful aging models: Proposing proactive coping as an important additional strategy

Development of Life Satisfaction in Old Age: Another View on the "Paradox''

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