The Psychology of Aging

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In the mid-1980s, baby boomers, the nation's largest and most influential cohort, began to enter their 40s. Reaching that milestone was quite a shock for a generation said to be perpetually youthful.

The nation as a whole was getting older as longevity increased, making aging a central issue, personally and socially. Many Americans were not ready to accept that their youth was becoming or already was something of the past.

The 1980s were thus the beginnings of what might be called “the de-aging of America,” as many boomers and members of the “Greatest Generation” actively sought ways to stall or reverse the physical process of getting older.

As the first wave of boomers entered midlife, the idea of “oldness” was pushed back, and the expectations for what people should or should not be doing at a particular age broadened.

Turning 50 had been commonly viewed as the unofficial turning of the corner into one’s senior years. Still, that number did not automatically mean one couldn't start a new career or family. In a larger sense, age was becoming less significant, a clear victory for those lobbying for a less age-centric society. Some experts in the field, such as psychologist Bernice Neugarten, then at Northwestern University, were going much further with the argument that age had become “irrelevant,” a historic achievement if it were at all true.

The attention given to aging in the 1980s reflected the greater realization of how central the subject was in American life and how much it had changed in people’s lifetimes. The age parameters in America have significantly shifted over the past few decades. In the 1950s, it was common for “young” to be defined as being under 35, “middle age” as being between 35 and 50, and anything after that as being “old.”

However, such a view changed radically by the 1980s. While many still agreed that one’s 50s represented a transitional period, few would now suggest that a person that age was “old.” Some in their 60s, 70s, and 80s were ignoring bingo and shuffleboard and instead joining the marathon-running craze.

The new views of aging could be detected across society in the 1980s, as former boundaries were expanded or relaxed. Whether it was 40-something baseball players, midlife women having babies, or the oldest president in the nation’s history, it did indeed appear that the preconceptions surrounding aging were eroding.

It was still true that some folks around the classic retirement age of 65 were ready for the rocking chair. However, doctors could no longer be sure what condition a 70-year-old patient would be in when they walked through the door; it could be anything from perfectly healthy to infirm.

As with many subjects, the more we learned about aging, the more that was considered unknown. For decades, it was generally held that the older one got, the more one lost — sex drive, memory, brain cells, energy, and intelligence. However, almost everything about aging was now being questioned, even the definition of “old.”

That people were living longer lives also contributed to the de-aging of America, specifically by making aging understood as much more than a process of loss or decline. More people today reach 80 or beyond without experiencing major physical or mental incapacitation, a reason to view chronological years as unreliable indicators of health or well-being. It was not aging but some medical factor — usually poor nutrition, lack of exercise, or disease — that led to “oldness,” researchers were coming to believe. (Flawed earlier research had equated adverse medical conditions with aging.)

The separation of the psychology of aging from the biology of aging was a huge step in the development of the field.