2 Factors of Aging
One of the problems that middle-agers face is caring for aged parents. One of the problems elderly people face is loss of independence and sometimes having to move in with children and in-laws. And some maY,have to play by new government rules in order to participate in various aid programs. At best, getting old creates a new set of problems for both the individual and society. In the remainder of this chapter we shall discuss the psychological aspects of these problems. A household made up of children, adolescents, youth, and old age certainly provides a laboratory setting for studying human relationships.
Decrease in Performance
From a rapidly increasing amount of research come some generalizations which add up to saying that aging is associated with a gradual decrease in the performance of most bodily organs. The speed of this change varies. however, from one organ system to another, even in the same individual. For example, muscle strength decreases 50 percent between the ages of thirty and ninety, while the speed of an impulse passing down a nerve fiber is reduced only 15 percent in this same time span. Among production workers only a slight decrease in productivity occurs after age forty-five. The decrease does not become substantial until age sixty. As for office workers, little if any decline occurs prior to age sixty, and the subsequent decline is minor.
Researchers looking for suggestions of changes in mental function resulting solely from age have found virtually no changes in the fifties that were inevitable. Some persons in their sixties and seventies show loss of memory, reasoning, and decision-making ;ibility, but m.any do not. It may be that the brain does not become exhausted so much by overwork as by what happens during the process of working . The individual may become worn out from the emotional stress accompanying the effort. Of course, there .may also be decline in the ability of the brain through distise.
Individual Differences in Aging
Individual differences among older people are extensive. There. are attitudinal sex differences which are significant. For example, a study was made of 590 men and 770 women, over the age range of twenty-cne to sixty-five, on the need for affiliation, achievement, and power. Among men, need for achievement dropped with age, but need for power rose. Among women, need for affiliation and need for power dropped.
The older person finds that he is sometimes in conflict with himself. He has a craving to straighten out the affairs of others and to express himself on every subject. After all, he does have experience and a store of wisdom. But he also is aware that on occasion he may be wrong. He knows a listener may get bored with his recital of endless detail. He wants to te thoughtful but not nosy, helpful but not bossy, and in the end he hopes to have some friends. Older people react in various ways to this conflict.
With advancing age there is a tendency for behavior to return to an earlier pattern and a simpler level of function. This is one reason why it is adv.antageous to build up good habit patterns early in life. The idea that the single person, "alone in the world," will face an unhappy old age is contrary to experience. Not having had companionship over the years, he or she may be better adjusted to the declining years than a married person who loses the spouse. There are no traits found only in aged people, no "typical" description of old age, in spite of some overgeneralized stereotypes to the contrary. Literally thousands of studies of vision, hearing, muscular strength, reaction time, psychomotor coordination, and various job performances have shown great individual differences at every age. In general, physical aging comes earlier than mental aging. The reverse sometimes occurs, however, in those people whose personality is such that they believe they are growing old. Such people may say they are losing their memory, when in actuality they probably put little or no effort into learning something in the first place. Psychological aging in some sense is a defensive mechanism, possibly useful at times.
Interest in money represents a highly individual type of behavior. Such interest, which may have waned some in middle age, generally is revived in old age for those who seek security or who wish to leave property to their children or grandchildren. However, some elderly persons seem unconcerned about money above a subsistence level. A few like to accumulate or manage money as a ga Enjoying the manipulation of large sums of money may interest some, while others use its manipulation more symbolically. One former vice-president and treasurer of a large corporation living in retirement said he looked forward each month to a meeting of his local shuf· fleboard club. Much discussion of finances was always in order-what to do with a balance of $55 in the treasury.
