Blackburn J.A., Dulmus C.N. (Editors). Handbook of gerontology: evidence-based approaches to theory, practice, and policy

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of their (complete) fulfillment and the limits of life on the other, may help per-

sons to acquire knowledge about the potentials, contexts, limits, and uncertain-

ties of life. This type of knowledge does not remain pure theory, but is connected

with emotionally meaningful personal experiences. In fact, several wisdom re-

searchers have argued that wisdom can be acquired only through learning from

one’s own experiences, not vicariously through reading books or through others’

instructions (e.g., Sternberg, 1998). In this sense, the experience of longing might

facilitate the acquisition of wisdom, especially if longings are of moderate inten-

sity and the emotions accompanying them are controllable.

On the other hand, it is possible that wisdom may promote the development of

mature and adaptive forms of life longings. Based on theoretical considerations

and our research on the relation between life longings and subjective well-being,

we consider life longings to be adaptive if they have a moderate expression and

are perceived to be under control. In contrast, frequent, intense, and uncontrol-

lable life longings likely are an indicator of chronic incompleteness and a lack of

perceived developmental progress and success. Wisdom-related knowledge about

the contexts, limits, and uncertainties of life may help to put one’s own experi-

ences and life reality in perspective. As a result, it may be easier to accept that

one cannot have everything in life, and that one always has to make choices, thus

facilitating more positive feelings toward one’s life longings.

One avenue for future research is to gain a better understanding of how life

longings and wisdom-related knowledge might be interrelated. Given that our

knowledge is quite limited, one could conduct a laboratory study in which adults

with high versus low levels of wisdom-related knowledge are asked to relive a life

longing and to subsequently reflect on it. Our prediction is that adults with low

versus high levels of wisdom-related knowledge will differ in terms of the long-

ing experience itself and the reflective processes. For example, wiser persons may

be better able to grasp the deeper meaning of their longing experience and inte-

grate this experience in more mature ways into the self.

Taken together, life longings may facilitate the acquisition of wisdom-related

knowledge, and wisdom-related knowledge might help individuals to shape and

make sense of their life longings. Given this reciprocal relationship, it is likely

that experiencing personally the potentials and constraints of life (life longings)

and knowing about the potentials and constraints of life (wisdom) may conjointly

foster a successful development, particularly in personal growth.

CONCLUSION

In this chapter, we introduced wisdom and life longings as two developmental

concepts that have been added to the agenda of life span researchers only rela-

tively recently. Both deal with positivity in its most radical form, that is, as psy-

chological utopia. Our general approach was to identify major topics of public

and humanist discourse about life and life development that so far have not been

studied from a psychological perspective, probably because of their complexity

and method constraints. We hope that we were able to convince the reader that

these concepts can and should be part of research on aging because they offer im-

portant insights into processes of successful lifelong development and make a

meaningful contribution to a science of psychological aging.

Wisdom, Life Longings, and Optimal Development 137

Both concepts reflect an awareness of the notion that life span development is

characterized by a search for perfection and a continuing sense of incomplete-

ness, that is, the feeling and insight that development never comes to a standstill

and has to remain incomplete and imperfect (P. B. Baltes, 1997a). This awareness

may be especially critical in times of fundamental societal change. As we have ar-

gued, increased longevity, rapid technological change, and globalization are soci-

etal processes that constitute a challenge to adults living in today’s world.

Knowing and accepting that life is inherently incomplete may help individuals to

make the most out of the potential gains that come with any societal transition

and to deal with the potential losses constructively.

Consistent with this idea is evidence for a link between wisdom-related

knowledge and positive developmental outcomes reflecting an interest in self-

actualization and helping others grow. As we have reviewed, life longings have

important developmental functions as well, including the provision of direction-

ality in life and the management of loss and unattainability.

Despite their contributions to a meaningful and satisfying life, life longings

and wisdom seem to also involve costs. Neither the insight that life is incom-

plete (wisdom-related knowledge) nor the experience of this incompleteness

(life longings) seems to be compatible with feelings of joy, enthusiasm, and

happiness.

One avenue for future research is to study the links between wisdom-related

knowledge and life longings on the one hand and multiple developmental out-

comes on the other hand more systematically and from a process-oriented per-

spective. For example, in what ways does the experience of life longings and the

availability of wisdom-related knowledge help people deal with concrete life

situations characterized by uncertainty and incompleteness so that they will

grow and help others grow? Addressing this and related questions will also

provide evidence about the interplay of life longings and wisdom in promoting

successful development. As we have argued, wisdom-related knowledge about

the potentials and constraints of life may help adults develop mature and adap-

tive forms of life longings; at the same time, personally experiencing the poten-

tials and constraints of life may promote the acquisition of theoretical,

wisdom-related knowledge.

Wisdom and life longings are two phenomena that may be particularly rele-

vant for the period of adulthood and old age. They do not evince the typical pat-

tern of aging-related decline that can be found in many other domains of

functioning (e.g., cognitive, physical), but continue to be relevant and may even

develop further with age and life experience. The evidence reviewed in this chap-

ter suggests that older adults are performing at levels equal to that of younger

adults in wisdom-related knowledge and experience structurally equivalent, and

possibly more mature, forms of life longings (as indicated by a stronger sense of

controllability and a stronger sense that life longings help to deal with loss and

nonattainability). Certainly, older adults face many disadvantages when it comes

to being successful in today’s world. Whereas young adults can respond to the

challenges of rapid technological change and globalization with increased flexi-

bility, adaptability, and effort, these strategies are less available to older adults.

Wisdom and life longings may be routes to cope with these fundamental societal

changes that are particularly suited to older adults. In this sense, wisdom and life

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longings help us to arrive at a balanced picture of old age as a period with both

gains and losses.

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143

CHAPTER 6

Sociological Approaches to

Understanding Age and Aging

DEBRA A. STREET

WO EMINENT GERONTOLOGISTS

, one a sociologist, the other a social historian,

wrote, “Aging may be a universal phenomenon but its impact and meaning

are mediated by economic, structural and cultural factors” (Hendricks &

Achenbaum, 1999, p. 22). What does it mean for individuals to age through time?

How do the meanings of aging change over time? Which social roles and statuses

involved in the experiences, continuities, and adjustments that individuals expe-

rience accompany advancing years? What impact do aging individuals have on

the social institutions and societies in which their experiences are embedded?

Sociologists have sought to understand the processes and relationships in-

volved in age and aging from the earliest days of their discipline, even before

gerontology became an organized field of study (Hagestad, 1999). Sociologists

have also long expressed concern about the underdevelopment of theories of

aging (Bengston & Schaie, 1999; Birren & Bengston, 1988; Estes, 1979). The study

of aging has been characterized by James Birren as “data rich and theory poor”

(Birren & Bengston, 1988, p. ix) and by others as occasionally plagued by a lack of

“gerontological imagination” (Estes, Binney, & Cuthbertson, 1992, p. 49). Hages-

tad describes an ongoing tension between sociology aimed at improved social sci-

entific understanding of age and aging populations and social gerontology

focused mainly on problem solving for aging individuals and societies (see

Achenbaum & Levin, 1989, on “problems” in gerontology). Because advancing

knowledge in sociology depends on testing and refining theories, from a discipli-

nary stance the more normative problem-focused gerontological studies of aging

are regarded as overly descriptive rather than contributing to causal explanations

of the interconnections between individual aging and the social, political, and

economic structure favored by academic sociologists.

Tension between social gerontology and sociology has been one factor that has

kept the study of aging at the margins of the discipline in sociology (Estes, Biggs,

& Phillipson, 2003, p. 10; Maddox, 1979). In fact, the very interdisciplinarity of the

study of aging has led a number of scholars—particularly sociologists who study

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aging—to identify theoretical underdevelopment as an impediment to advancing

gerontological studies (Bengston & Schaie, 1999). Tensions within sociology, be-

tween micro perspectives emphasizing individual actors and macro perspectives

emphasizing the structure of society, have also played a part in the fragmentary

nature of sociological contributions to theory and research on aging. Nonetheless,

sociologists have always been centrally involved in social gerontological research

and theorizing, despite the challenges. Recent developments in critical gerontol-

ogy and life course theory hint of important sociological breakthroughs yet to

come in terms of contributions to the evidentiary and explanatory basis for the

study of age and aging.

Whether the purpose of research on aging is to identify practical knowledge,

suggest effective clinical interventions, establish academic facts, build social sci-

entific theories, or something else, all academic gerontological studies depend, in

part, on assumptions or implicit viewpoints of optimal aging. Although the as-

sumptions differ from study to study, they are usually conceptually consistent

with the theoretical framework researchers use to frame their research. One im-

portant role for theory in research on aging, therefore, is the need for conceptual

precision that attempts to make the underlying assumptions of particular theories

used to study the aging process more explicit. Another is that formal statements of

theory help researchers to integrate research findings and to systematically build

knowledge in gerontology.

There are two dominant approaches to social science studies of aging. Identify-

ing “old age” or “aging” as a problem to be addressed, a key feature of many multi-

disciplinary gerontological approaches to the study of aging, implies that

characteristics and behaviors associated with some age other than “old” age are

the appropriate benchmarks for assessing when individuals experience success-

ful, normal, or positive aging. Deviations from these ideas of successful aging

represent pathological aging or suboptimal problems to be addressed, either

through policy interventions or clinical practices. The need to identify sources of

the particular problems associated with old age inspires interdisciplinary studies

attempting to devise evidence-based strategies to remedy them.

A more purely sociological approach is less attentive to potential interventions

and more apt to explain social processes of age and aging as a puzzle to be solved

within social systems, with careful attention to conceptual precision, theory test-

ing, explanation, and links back to the discipline and other sociological theories

(Bengston & Schaie, 1999). Like its more applied cousin, sociological research on

aging depends in part on implicit (assumptions) or explicit (theoretically derived)

ideal types or profiles of aging individuals and societies. Sociologists’ research

and theoretical concerns range from individual processes (micro theories) to

large population-based ones (macro theories).

In practice, research on aging is often multidisciplinary or problem-focused;

only occasionally is it more distinctively sociological and disciplinary in charac-

ter. But whether research occurs at the problem-solving end of the spectrum, the

puzzle-solving, or somewhere in between, sociologists seek evidence to explain

individuals’ lives through time and to explain both continuity and change in

aging individuals and aging societies. The recent trend to practice public sociol-

ogy (Burawoy, 2004; Light, 2005) reminds academic sociologists that pursuit of

scientific knowledge derived from empirical tests of theories can also (and should

also) produce socially relevant research.

Sociological Approaches to Understanding Age and Aging 145

Sociologists make their most important contributions to research on aging by

explaining how institutions and social settings structure individual lives through

time and how those settings and institutions are, in turn, shaped by individuals

moving through adulthood to old age. Despite previous attempts to devise them,

there are no general or grand theories of aging. Sociologists work within differ-

ent theoretical frameworks that vary in terms of core focus, key conceptual cate-

gories, and units of analysis, depending on the problem or puzzle at issue. Some

theories focus on aging individuals’ social relationships, whether within families

and friends or within other primary institutions of society such as education,

work, or religion. Others are more concerned with aging societies, trying to un-

derstand how social structures enable and constrain individuals’ choices and life

chances. Gerontological theories can be classified in several different ways, such

as normative versus interpretive theories (Hendricks, 1992; Marshall, 1996),

macro versus micro approaches (Bengston, Parrott, & Burgess, 1996; Marshall,

1996), critical versus radical models (Marshall & Tindale, 1978; Phillipson, 1998),

or as progressive generations of theories (Bengston, Burgess, & Parrott, 1997;

Hendricks, 1992; Lynott & Passuth Lynott, 1996; Marshall, 1999). However, focus-

ing on the level of analysis a theoretical framework takes as its central problem-

atic, as in this chapter, orients readers to the differences in analytical focus and

levels of explanation. This highlights the potential strengths and weaknesses of

particular theoretical approaches, as well as the challenges of making linkages

across levels of analysis.

Sociological researchers use different theoretical frameworks and methodolog-

ical tools to design research to explain how individuals experience aging (micro

level), how aging individuals relate to the social system (meso level), and how

aging populations, institutions, and societies interact at the system level (macro

level; also see Estes, 1999; Marshall, 1999). These three broad levels of analysis—

micro, meso, and macro—have traditionally provided sociologists the analytic

spaces to study aging individuals and their societies; they also organize the dis-

cussion in this chapter. A brief history of early sociological research relating to

age sets the stage for a more detailed discussion of particular theories within

each of the three levels of analysis, providing the theoretical foundations for soci-

ologists’ study of aging. Each perspective emerged within a particular historical

moment so that aging theories developed in tandem with the main concerns of

disciplinary trends at the time. Regardless of when initial theoretical develop-

ments occurred, however, sociological theories of aging continue to inform con-

temporary studies of aging, whether as the basis for research design or as a

catalyst to further theoretical refinement. A selection of empirical findings and

major critiques inspired by each theory are presented, followed by a conclusion

that highlights recent developments in critical gerontology and life course stud-

ies and their potential to link concepts and concerns across theories sociologists

use to explain aging.

SOCIOLOGICAL APPROACHES TO

UNDERSTANDING AGE AND AGING

Nascent interest by sociologists in the formal study of aging—around the time

that widespread interest in gerontology was crystallizing by the mid-twentieth

century—focused on social psychological aspects of adjustment, life satisfaction,