a life span model of essful ageing.pdf

A Life Span Model of essful Aging Richard Schulz JuRa Heckhausen University of Pittsburgh Max Planck Institute for Human Development and Education To lay the foundation for our model, we first describe ex- isting conceptions of essful aging, underlying as- sumptions of development, and criteria for ess. The model presented extends the discourse on this topic in three directions: (a) It frames the discussion of essful aging in the broader context of life course development; (b) it accounts for both normative and nonnormative (., exceptional) ess; and (c) it integrates motivational processes into a theory of essful aging. essful ag- ing is equated with the development and maintenance of primary control throughout the life course, which is achieved through control-related processes that optimize selection and failure compensation functions. Selection processes regulate the choice of action goals so that di- versity is maintained and positive and negative trade-offs between performance domains and life stages are taken into account. Compensation mechanisms serve to main- tain, enhance, and remediate competencies and motiva- tional resources after failure experiences. Both compen- sation and selection processes are motivated by desires for primary control and can be characterized in terms of primary and secondary control processes. I nvestigators interested in aging have long recognized the importance of distinguishing between pathologic as opposed to normal aging. Thus, researchers inter- ested in normative physiologic or cognitive age changes have been careful to exclude persons suffering from ill- nesses that might adversely affect performance and thus give a distorted picture of age-related declines. Although the distincti