The role of historical change for adult development and aging: Towards a theoretical framework about the how and the why.

Abstract

The role of historical change for individual functioning and development has long been a central feature of life span psychological and life course sociological theory. However, the mechanisms underlying how historical change in contexts shapes individual functioning and development are less well understood. To better understand such open questions, we present the HIDECO (HIstorical changes in DEvelopmental COntexts) theoretical framework to structure and integrate potential pathways of historical change in (a) population distributions of key resources for successful aging, (b) social and family life, (c) modern technological and scientific progress, and (d) Zeitgeist and norms including societal definitions of social roles, attitudes, and age norms. We then summarize the conceptual perspectives and empirical findings from developed countries for each of these four intertwined layers of contextual embedding. In a last major step, we use the empirical articles compiled in this Special Issue to illustrate the utility of the HIDECO framework. In doing so, we work out a number of key insights gained in this Special Issue and identify some of the open questions that need to be tackled in the future.

Perceived Importance and Enjoyment of Sexuality in Late Midlife: Cohort Differences in the Longitudinal Aging Study Amsterdam (LASA)

“…In our study, we drew from earlier reports about historical changes in key aspects of sexuality in later life (e.g., Beckman et al, 2014;Forbes et al, 2017;Twenge et al, 2017) and extended those to specifically consider the importance and enjoyment of sexuality among adults in late midlife. Because many societal trends evolve gradually over time, one can expect developmentally relevant societal conditions to differ more strongly from one another the further away the historical times are that people have experienced and lived in when being at the same or comparable phases of their lives (Drewelies et al, 2019). There is empirical evidence implying that a time window of about 20 years may allow for historical changes in psychosocial functioning to emerge (e.g., Drewelies, Deeg, et al, 2018;Hülür et al, 2016).…”

Changes in optimism and pessimism in response to life events: Evidence from three large panel studies

“…The debate about cohort versus developmental effects is hotly debated in the field of personality development (Roberts et al, 2010;Trzesniewski et al, 2008;Twenge et al, 2008;Wetzel et al, 2017). Recent theorizing about age, cohort, and period effects in psychological characteristics can provide a useful framework for thinking about how and why the development of optimism and pessimism might vary across cultures and settings (Drewelies et al, 2019;Yang & Land, 2013). Future research can design studies that make it possible to examine how context affects the development of optimism or how heterogeneous these effects might be across samples and subsamples .…”

The Increasing Importance of Friendship in Late Life: Understanding the Role of Sociohistorical Context in Social Development

“…If the environment is understood as the all-encompassing multitude of influences that exist outside of the individual, we view context as those factors in the environment that are relevant for understanding the formation of social networks [33]. In the present paper, we define the critical features of the context (i.e., those that are most relevant) and give many examples, but of course it is not possible to provide an exhaustive list.…”