How have research and theory on aging changed to adjust for the fact that the average life-span is increasing? As a larger proportion of our lives occurs after retirement age, psychologists are adjusting their thinking about old age. While previous theorizing about aging assumed that people withdrew and deteriorated as they aged, current research on aging takes a different stance: rather than starting from the assumption that their abilities decline, psychologists are discovering the ways in which the elderly maintain their abilities. We now know that cognitive and memory impairments are by no means inevitable; elderly people who stay active and stimulated maintain these abilities as well as their happiness and involvement with life. Do people continue to develop after they reach physical maturity? While the most outward and dramatic developmental changes occur between birth and adolescence, humans never stop changing as they continue through the rest of the life cycle. From the peak of physical health in young adulthood, through the shifting roles and responsibilities of middle adulthood, to the bodily slow-down associated with aging, people continually make social, emotional, and physical adjustments. | 
2002 McGraw-Hill Higher Education