Ursula M. Staudinger

Exercise-induced changes in basal ganglia volume and cognition in older adults.

Physical activity has been demonstrated to diminish age-related brain volume shrinkage in several brain regions accompanied by a reduction of age-related decline in cognitive functions. Most studies investigated the impact of cardiovascular fitness or training. Other types of fitness or training are less well investigated. In addition, little is known about exercise effects on volume of the basal ganglia, which, however, are involved in motor activities and cognitive functioning. In the current study (1) we examined the relationships of individual cardiovascular and motor fitness levels with the volume of the basal ganglia (namely caudate, putamen, and globus pallidus) and selected cognitive functions (executive control, perceptual speed). (2) We investigated the effect of 12-month training interventions (cardiovascular and coordination training, control group stretching and relaxation) on the volume of the respective basal ganglia nuclei. Results revealed that motor fitness but not cardiovascular fitness was positively related with the volume of the putamen and the globus pallidus. Additionally, a moderating effect of the volume of the basal ganglia (as a whole, but also separately for putamen and globus pallidus) on the relationship between motor fitness and executive function was revealed. Coordination training increased caudate and globus pallidus volume. We provide evidence that coordinative exercise seems to be a favorable leisure activity for older adults that has the potential to improve volume of the basal ganglia.

Images of Aging: Outside and Inside Perspectives

Chronological age is but one, and not the most accurate, indicator of human aging. Multiple outside (i.e., objective) and inside (i.e., subjective) perspectives on aging need to be considered to do justice to the multidimensionality of human development and aging. Outside perspectives are, for example, biological, social, and psychological ages. A chronological age of 75 years, for instance, may be linked with a different biological as well as cognitive age. Human development and aging is not only a biological process but is interactive in nature. As a result, it is characterized by impressive plasticity which entails the relativity of the meaning of chronological age. Outside perspectives are closely linked with inside perspectives on aging such as societal stereotypes, images about ones own old age and metastereotypes, that is, what we think others might think about old age. These inside perspectives, even though invisible, are very powerful and exert effects on biological, social, and psychological ages alike and are affected by them. Future research needs to focus on furthering our understanding of the interactions taking place between biological, psychological, and sociocultural influences on the aging process and on the mechanisms linking personal, societal, and meta-images of old age.

A Global View on the Effects of Work on Health in Later Life

PURPOSE OF THE STUDYnWork is an important environment shaping the aging processes during the adult years. Therefore, the cumulative and acute effects of work characteristics on late-life health deserve great attention. Given that population aging has become a global trend with ensuing changes in labor markets around the world, increased attention is paid to investigating the effects of the timing of retirement around the world and the macroeconomic benefits often associated with delaying retirement. It will be essential for societies with aging populations to maintain productivity given an aging workforce and for individuals it will be crucial to add healthy and meaningful years rather than just years to their lives.nnnDESIGN AND METHODSnWe first describe the available evidence about participation of older workers (65+) in the labor force in high, middle, and low-income countries. Second, we discuss the individual-level and societal influences that might govern labor-force participation of older adults. Thirdly, we review evidence on the association between work on the one and physical, mental, and cognitive health in later life on the other.nnnRESULTS AND IMPLICATIONSnGlobally, both is true: work supports healthy aging and jeopordizes it. We draw implications for policymaking in terms of social protection, HR policies, and older employee employability.

Wisdom and Psychosocial Functioning in Later Life

We investigated the connection between wisdom-related performance, personality, and generativity to further the understanding of how they are interrelated. Our sample consisted of 163 men and women 68-77 years of age, mostly White, and predominantly middle class. Wisdom was assessed with the performance-based Berlin Wisdom Paradigm, with the remaining measures being mostly self-report. As hypothesized, on the zero-order level, wisdom-related performance (WRP) was positively associated with (a) growth, a personality component indexed by Openness to Experience, psychological mindedness, and a sense of well-being derived from growth, purpose in life, and autonomy; (b) adjustment, a personality component associated with life satisfaction, high levels of Agreeableness and Conscientiousness, low Neuroticism, a sense of well-being derived from positive relations with others, self-acceptance, and environmental mastery; and (c) a generative concern for the welfare of others. Latent path analysis indicated that the bivariate associations between adjustment and wisdom and between generativity and wisdom were mediated by growth. Wise individuals are characterized by their ability to balance different personal strengths and interests, an integration that occurs, however, within the context of a dominant personality style marked by the pursuit of maturity through personal growth.

Retirement Sequences of Older Americans: Moderately Destandardized and Highly Stratified Across Gender, Class, and Race

Purpose of the StudynA destandardization of labor-force patterns revolving around retirement has been observed in recent literature. It is unclear, however, to which degree and of which kind. This study looked at sequences rather than individual statuses or transitions and argued that differentiating older Americans retirement sequences by type, order, and timing and considering gender, class, and race differences yields a less destandardized picture.nnnDesign and MethodsnSequence analysis was employed to analyze panel data from the Health and Retirement Study (HRS) for 7,881 individuals observed 6 consecutive times between ages 60-61 and 70-71.nnnResultsnAs expected, types of retirement sequences were identified that cannot be subsumed under the conventional model of complete retirement from full-time employment around age 65. However, these retirement sequences were not entirely destandardized, as some irreversibility and age-grading persisted. Further, the degree of destandardization varied along gender, class, and race. Unconventional sequences were archetypal for middle-level educated individuals and Blacks. Also, sequences for women and individuals with lower education showed more unemployment and part-time jobs, and less age-grading.nnnImplicationsnA sequence-analytic approach that models group differences uncovers misjudgments about the degree of destandardization of retirement sequences. When a continuous process is represented as individual transitions, the overall pattern of retirement sequences gets lost and appears destandardized. These patterns get further complicated by differences in social structures by gender, class, and race in ways that seem to reproduce advantages that men, more highly educated individuals, and Whites enjoy in numerous areas over the life course.

The Need to Distinguish Personal from General Wisdom: A Short History and Empirical Evidence

In this chapter, I aim to demonstrate the usefulness of a rather recent addition to the conceptualization and measurement of wisdom, and that is the notion of “personal or self-related wisdom,” which was first introduced as a concept in the late 1990s (Staudinger UM, Social cognition and a psychological approach to an art of life. In Blanchard-Fields F, Hess T (eds) Social cognition, adult development and aging, Academic Press, New York, pp 343–375, 1999a). I have suggested to distinguish personal from general wisdom as evidence has shown that the covariance patterns, age trajectories, and plasticity patterns of both concepts differ. Folklore and grandmother wisdom captures in a number of sayings that it is easier to give wise advice to others than oneself, let alone following it. Obviously, personal and general wisdom are not independent of each other but each carry unique variance. This chapter compiles the evidence underlying the distinction between general and personal wisdom. Most of the approaches to wisdom in the literature to date, however, have not specified whether they are addressing personal or general wisdom or both. Research on personal and general wisdom needs to take into consideration method effects such that identified similarities or differences between the two concepts should not be confounded by a difference in the assessment method. More longitudinal evidence is needed to disentangle the intricate developmental interrelations between general and personal wisdom.

Don’t Lose Your Brain at Work – The Role of Recurrent Novelty at Work in Cognitive and Brain Aging

Cognitive and brain aging is strongly influenced by everyday settings such as work demands. Long-term exposure to low job complexity, for instance, has detrimental effects on cognitive functioning and regional gray matter (GM) volume. Brain and cognition, however, are also characterized by plasticity. We postulate that the experience of novelty (at work) is one important trigger of plasticity. We investigated the cumulative effect of recurrent exposure to work-task changes (WTC) at low levels of job complexity on GM volume and cognitive functioning of middle-aged production workers across a time window of 17 years. In a case-control study, we found that amount of WTC was associated with better processing speed and working memory as well as with more GM volume in brain regions that have been associated with learning and that show pronounced age-related decline. Recurrent novelty at work may serve as an ‘in vivo’ intervention that helps counteracting debilitating long-term effects of low job complexity.

Towards Truly Interdisciplinary Research on Human Development

I have a dream: The study of human development would make an epistemic leap due to the fact that “true” interdisciplinarity was reigning supreme and impacting the research landscape. The article argues for why that would be the case and suggests ways to make progress towards the realization of this dream. Five promoters of “true” interdisciplinarity are suggested: (1) work and management structures of research institutions; (2) structures of research funding including the reviewing process and the willingness to take some risks; (3) openness of peer-review journals and their review process; (4) academic education preparing for true interdisciplinarity; and (5) availability of multilevel cohort-sequential panel studies around the world covering the whole life span.

Age differences in achievement goals and motivational characteristics of work in an ageing workforce

ABSTRACT This study reviews theory and results from developmental psychology to examine age differences in workplace achievement goals. We investigated whether goal level decreases with age and, by comparing the relative strength of different goals within individuals, we examined whether dominant achievement goals are related to age. In a large sample of employees (N=747), older workers higher affective commitment and intrinsic motivation compensated for age-related decline in the importance of achievement goals. Whether learning-approach and learning-avoidance were dominant goals was not related to age but instead to skill level, affective commitment and intrinsically satisfying work. Dominant performance-approach goals were more common among males. Performance-avoidance was most likely to be a dominant goal among older males. Moreover, with age, performance-goal orientations had increasingly maladaptive consequences for self-efficacy and affect at work.

As You Sow, So Shall You Reap: Gender-Role Attitudes and Late-Life Cognition:

Some studies have found that women outperform men in episodic memory after midlife. But is this finding universal, and what are the reasons? Gender differences in cognition are the result of biopsychosocial interactions throughout the life course. Social-cognitive theory of gender development posits that gender roles may play an important mediating role in these interactions. We analyzed country differences in the gender differential in cognition after midlife using data from individuals age 50 and above (N = 226,661) from 27 countries. As expected, older women performed relatively better in countries characterized by more equal gender-role attitudes. This result was robust to cohort differences as well as reverse causality. The effect was partially mediated by education and labor-force participation. Cognition in later life thus cannot be fully understood without reference to the opportunity structures that sociocultural environments do (or do not) provide. Global population aging raises the importance of understanding that gender roles affect old-age cognition and productivity.