QUOTES XXI
Quotations about
THE PSYCHOLOGY OF AGEING
PEOPLE ARE LIVING LONGER; YET 'SENIOR CITIZENS' LIVE ALONE
IN RELATIVELY LARGE PROPERTIES, ARE JOBLESS, AND ARE THE MAIN
CONSUMERS OF STATE HEALTH CARE. PERHAPS MODERN PSYCHOLOGY CAN
OFFER HOPE FOR THE ELDERLY OF A FULFILLING OLD AGE? OR PERHAPS
THE TOLERANCE THAT EXISTS BETWEEN MOST OF THE OLD AND MOST OF
THE YOUNG IS A MODEL OF GOOD BETWEEN-GROUP RELATIONS DESPITE REAL
PSYCHOLOGICAL DIFFERENCES?
Though the differences between the young and the old border on
being matters of both banality and delicacy, they have a particular
interest. Differences between people in sex, class and race have
all proved relatively contentious even in recent times; by contrast,
little is heard today of 'the generation gap.' How age differences
are handled may thus provide a model of how to treat other, less
obvious and still more sensitive differences between major,
visible human groups.
Three considerations help keep temperatures down as age differences
are discussed.
(1) Age differences are pretty clearly dimensional, and not absolute;
and they are not all 'negative'. There are few 'black-and-white'
differences, for all that some proportion of the problems of the
elderly obviously arise from particular devastating afflictions
like Alzheimer's disease. Health, vigour, looks and intelligence
are admittedly at their peak (in the average person) in youth;
and ageing sees a decline which, though barely perceptible at
first, is marked after 55. However, compensation is normally thought
to be provided by increased caution, wisdom, moral rectitude,
good-naturedness and by deep and fulfilling experiences of prolonged
affectionate relationships with family and friends.
(2) Equally agreeably, temptations to 'label' and criticise people
of another age group are held in check by: (a) the sympathy that
the elderly sometimes have for the young-through recall of their
own youth and realization that grandchildren are their only way
to continued genetic investment; (b) the elderly often needing
the support of the young (especially in social security contributions);
(c) young people recognizing that they, too, will one day be old
in their turn.
(3) Modern advanced economies mediate between the young and the
old: they provide funds and welfare personnel intended to cope
both with the youthful problems of ignorance, crime, promiscuity
and illegitimacy and with the needs of the elderly for
home helps, sheltered accommodation and spare part surgery.
In these congenial circumstances, it should be relatively easy
to be 'objective' about the major psychological differences that
distinguish the old from the young-even about the gf level
of the typical 80-year-old adult, which approximates that of a
normal 8-year-old child. Yet many psychologists have been reluctant
to admit such 'realities' without much qualification. Psychometricians
have blamed apparent age differences on possible 'cohort effects'
between generations-arguing that today's sixty-year-olds grew
up without the welfare state and modern agriculture, whereas today's
thirty-year-olds enjoyed, from the cradle, welfare and a good
diet that will still be serving them well by the time when they,
too, reach sixty. Experimental psychologists, on the other hand
are more accepting of the evidence that age-declines are indeed
seen in cohort and longitudinal studies. Yet they see age differences
partly as artefacts of coarse psychometric testing procedures;
and partly as resulting from specific quirks and maladaptive
strategies on the part of the elderly that might remain untriggered
if only tasks were re-designed and the elderly re-trained by experimentalists.
Rather in contrast with such speculations, the 1980's witnessed
the arrival on the scene of measures of speed-of-intake (for simple
perceptual information) that make it hard to attribute age-declines
to problems of decision-making, strategy-organization, lack of
interest, or unfamiliarity with the psychological laboratory {see
also Quotes IX}. Piagetian measures, too, showed the elderly to
be at just as marked a disadvantage as they are on traditional
mental tests {see also Quotes XII}.
None of this means that society should not ascribe special rights
to the elderly and the middle-aged-even the right to continued
employment. Yet- as when other groups are considered for
privileged treatment- the adage should be recalled that 'Rights
without duties are not worth having'. If the middle-aged and the
elderly are to be shown 'positive discrimination' (perhaps starting
with employers not being allowed to advertise specifically for
employees from younger age groups), what are their special duties?
Human societies may perhaps have to be admitted as incapable
of a realistic handling of human abilities that treats everyone-of
whatever age, sex, class-of-origin or race-quite simply by exactly
similar standards, as individuals. However, if rights and
privileges are to be accorded to particular groups, beneficiaries
themselves would probably feel more secure if the positive discrimination
in their favour were premissed on something more than charitable
whimsy.
Most naturally, the elderly would play a special role in the
nurture and education of young children. Yet this is hardly possible
on any scale when 'teachers' in state schools require a sympathy
with youth 'culture' and black belts in judo; and when even progress
in the English language (with which the elderly are best equipped
to assist) is not used as a basis for promoting children to more
advanced classes. So far, the problem of increasingly large proportions
of elerly people has been addressed by the empty rhetoric of similitarian
wishful thinking. Unless there is increasing realism about the
contribution that the elderly can make to the economy and society,
the elderly may find the young increasingly keen to relieve them
of their expensive welfare rights and benefits-at first by some
kind of purchase, but eventually by robbery (already a familiar
tower-block sport).
*********************************************************************
For more coverage of ageing in relation to intelligence, see:
BRAND, C.R. (1996) The g Factor.
Chichester : Wiley DePublisher.
The book was first issued, in March, but then withdrawn by the
'publisher' because it was deemed to have infringed modern canons
of
'political correctness.'
It received a perfectly favourable review in Nature (May
2, 1996, p. 33).
For a Summary of the book, Newsletters concerning the
de-publication affair, details of how to see the book for scholarly
purposes, and others' comments and reviews,
see the Internet URL sites:
http://laboratory.psy.ed.ac.uk/DOCS/crb/internet.html
http://www.webcom.com/zurcher/thegfactor/index.html
For Chris Brand's 'Get Real About Race!'-his popular exposition
of his views on race and education in the Black
hip-hop music magazine 'downlow' (Autumn, 1996)-see:
http://www.bhs.mq.edu.au/~tbates/intelligence/Brand_downlow.html
******************************************************************
INDEX to QUOTES XXI
Page
(i) Age differences asserted.
5
(ii) Age differences denied. 8
(iii) Lifespan development. 11
(iv) The role of g in ageing. 14
(v) Ageism. 18
(vi) Handy tips. 20
Epilogue.
(i) Age differences asserted
"The young are in character prone to desire and ready
to carry any desire they may have formed into action. Of bodily
desires it is the sexual to which they are most disposed to give
way, and in regard to sexual desire they exercise no self-restraint.
They are changeful, too, and fickle in their desires, which are
as transitory as they are vehement; for their wishes are keen
without being permanent, like a sick man's fits of hunger and
thirst. They are passionate, irascible and apt to be carried away
by their impulses. They are the slaves, too, of their passions,
as their ambition prevents their ever brooking a slight and renders
them indignant at the mere idea of enduring an injury."
ARISTOTLE, Rhetoric.
"What a good thing it would be if every scientific man was
to die when sixty years old, as afterwards he would be sure to
oppose all new doctrines."
DARWIN.
"I have two fixed ideas well known to my friends.... The
first is the comparative uselessness of men over forty years of
age.... The second is the {unqualified} uselessness of men above
sixty."
Sir William OSLER (Professor of Clinical Medicine at
John Hopkins University, then aged 56), 1905.
"I feel like an aeroplane at the end of a long flight, in
the dusk, with the petrol running out, in search of a safe landing."
Sir Winston Churchill (aged 80), 1954. Quoted by
Martin Gilbert, Never Despair. London : Heinemann.
"The lethargy of extreme old age dulls many sensibilities."
Mary SOAMES, 1979, Clementine Churchill. London : Cassell.
"Following the initial stability over the early age groups
[ages 17 - 29], total Sensation Seeking Scale score is seen to
decline consistently with age {till around 55, which was as far
as the study went}."
I.L.BALL et al., 1984, British Journal of Psychology
75.
"Many studies based on laboratory research show that the
elderly do not learn as well as younger people. Several reasons
for this have been found.
(1) They may take longer to process and retrieve information.
(2) They fail to encode or organize the information as well as
younger
people.
(3) They prefer pre-established habits.
(4) They may be very uncomfortable in laboratory situations."
R.ORNSTEIN, 1985, Psychology.
San Diego : Harcourt Brace Jovanovich.
"It is well known that elderly people often attribute all
the ills of the world to a single cause, e.g. the philosopher
Kant and electricity." Lord BLAKE, 1986, letter to The
Times, c. 30 ix.
"....old age prevents a man from having complex mathematical
thoughts."
R.SWINBURNE, 1986, The Evolution of the Soul.
Oxford : Clarendon Press.
"One of the more disheartening experiences of old age is
discovering that a point you have just made - so significant,
so beautifully expressed - was made in something you published
a long time ago."
B.F.SKINNER, 1987, Upon Further Reflection.
Englewood Cliffs, N.J. : Prentice Hall.
"The inference [from present results] that factors related
to the quality of internal representation are important
in the age differences in the Block Design task is similar to
conclusions reached earlier in analyses of age differences in
Series Completion and Mental Synthesis tasks. Difficulties in
establishing and maintaining adequate internal representations
of relevant task features may, therefore, be a common thread unifying
what have previously been considered unrelated phenomena of cognitive
aging {sic}."
T.A.SALTHOUSE, 1987, Intelligence 11.
"Age - that's the only reasonable and personally acceptable
for my increasing inability to sympathize with many of the demands
made by the Left and the so-called disadvantaged."
Robert KILROY-SILK (a Merseyside Labour M.P., 1974 - 1986),
1987, The Times, 24 x.
"When people have to remember to perform an act in the future,
they must also keep a record of the act {once} performed so as
not to repeat it. This neglected aspect of everyday memory was
investigated by examining the alleged preponderance of action
repetitions in old age (e.g. telling the same story over and
over, taking a medicine too often, etc.).... the tendency to repeat
words in free recall [of word lists] was found to be stronger
among older than among younger subjects.... How does the memory
that I have told a joke differ from the memory that I have heard
it? Perhaps the critical difference is that memory for output
occurrence concerns one's own actions."
A.KORIAT, H.BEN-ZUR & D.SHEFFER, 1988,
Journal of Memory & Language 27.
"We began [our Gallup Poll of British men, across ages 16
- 35] with....the question: 'OF COURSE, WE ALL HOPE THAT THERE
WILL NOT BE ANOTHER WAR. BUT IF IT WERE TO COME TO THAT, WOULD
YOU BE WILLING TO FIGHT FOR YOUR COUNTRY?' Altogether, just over
half of these young Britons gave an unreserved commitment to war.
But those below the twenty-five year watershed were more eager
than those above it. The years of highest sexual, criminal and
athletic vigour are also the high days of military verve."
Paul BARKER, 1988, Sunday Telegraph (Colour Supplement),
29 v.
"Much of the most recent new work on ageing appears to have
come from experimental studies on lower organisms ranging from
slime moulds and nematodes to {those} classic metazoons for genetic
research, Drosophila. According to R.S.Sohal (in M.Rothstein,
Review of Biological Research in Aging 3), there is no
a priori reason to assert that the mechanisms of ageing
in invertebrates are qualitatively different from those of mammals....
Data from many sources....suggest that DNA damage is a primary
event in ageing, and that oxidative changes caused by free radicals
are a potential major cause of this damage."
K.J.COLLINS, 1988, Biology and Society 5, vi.
"....A.F.Elo's (1965, J.Gerontology) longitudinal
study of master chess players concluded that, at age 63, almost
thirty years beyond their peak, they were performing at a level
like that back when they were only 20 - but not as well as they
did in their late thirties."
Lawrence S. WRIGHTSMAN, 1988, Personality Development
in Adulthood. Newbury Park, Ca. : Sage.
"The performance of old and young adults on a verbal memory
task was examined under conditions of divided attention, factorially
manipulated at encoding and retrieval. The data analyses yielded
a significant Age x Encoding interaction, indicating that older
people's memory was much more disrupted than young adults' when
distraction occurred at encoding."
Denise C. PARK (University of Georgia), 1988, to 24th
International Congress of Psychology, Sydney (S728).
"....once Steffi [Graf] gets going she's difficult to stop.
She's 19 while I'm 31, and it's much easier to get a 19-year-old
body warmed up.... I would love to have that record [of winning
the women's championship at Wimbledon for the ninth time] but
I certainly don't feel any shame for not breaking it. Eight ain't
so bad."
Martina NAVRATILOVA, 1988, reported by Sue Mott,
Sunday Times, 3 viii.
(ii) Age differences denied
"[There is] no interesting difference between age or
ability groups that must be ascribed to differences in capacities."
J.BARON, 1978.
"....practically nothing of consequence can be incontrovertibly
shown to distinguish the old from the not-so-old, with the possible
exception of sensory-motor slowing."
M.J.CHANDLER, 1980, in R.R.Turner & X.Hayne,
Life-span Developmental Psychology.
"The evidence slowly accumulating now makes it increasingly
probable that chronological age per se has little effect
on human abilities. It is rather the accumulation of physiological
damage over the life span, and the onset of diseases accompanying
age, which bring a stable plateau of peak mental performance to
an abrupt end in a "terminal drop" accompanying increasing
pathology."
P.M.A.RABBITT, 1986, in R.Harré & R.Lamb, The
Dictionary of Developmental and Educational Psychology.
Oxford : Blackwell.
"....much of what we understand by 'old age' is socially
constructed."
Julia TWIGG, 1987,
Times Higher Educational Supplement, No. 749, 13 iii.
"The belief that people's memory and learning abilities decline
with advancing age is being challenged by research at several
Max Planck Institutes in West Germany. Professor Franz Emanuel
Weinert, director of the Psychological Research Institute, told
a Hamburg conference on learning and age that the reason why human
beings were presumed to have lost some of their intellectual capacity
in advanced years could be {traced} to their lifestyle and not
their potential: in many cases they simply did not use the brain
power at their disposal. Another specialist, Professor Wolfgang
Klein, said there was no scientific evidence that adults who wanted
to become proficient in a foreign language faced a greater difficulty
than children."
A.WISEMAN, 1987, 'Old age 'no handicap to learning''.
The Times, 9 xi.
"We can learn new things any time we decide."
A British 'Senior Citizen' discussing the new phenomenon of
'WOOPIES' ('Well-Off Older People'), 1987, BBC IV UK, 3 xii.
"Many people of advanced years possess considerable memory
reserves which could be used to study and think."
Professor Paul BALTES, 1987, quoted by A.Wiseman, The Times,
9 xi.
"....many psychological researchers fail to attend to the
increasing range of individual differences with age, and inappropriately
infer universal age decrements from average changes occasioned
by the increasing proportion of individuals at risk [of ill health]
as they age."
K.W.SCHAIE, 1988, 'Ageism in psychological research'.
American Psychologist 43.
"We know that the brain is capable of mental feats
way in excess of our everyday requirements. And we also know that
the generally accepted view that intelligence declines with age
is a myth. It is true that statistically IQ tends to decline
from around the age of twenty onwards. But it is also true that
there is no scientific reason why this should be so. Books on
the brain almost invariably say that 'it is generally thought'
that brain cells are lost as the brain grows older - possibly
at the rate of 100,000 cells a day. But no definitive evidence
for this assumption has yet been found."
Richard ASKWITH, 1988, 'What's in a brain?'
Sunday Telegraph (Colour Supplement), 22 v.
"Old age really is a state of mind. You can become
young again almost at once."
Callan PINCKNEY, 1989, Callanetics. New York : Arrow.
"There is tremendous untapped energy and creativity to be
found in the over-40's.... There is no necessary connection between
being young and being radical."
Contributor to 'Open Mind', BBC IV UK, 11 vi 1991.
||
"[In his book, Kausler] explicitly rejects what he calls
the 'Pollyanna attitude' that seeks, in the face of evidence to
the contrary) to maintain that human cognition is not adversely
affected by ageing. This view, which seems to have been gaining
ground of late, appears to be engendered by the kind of misplaced
sensitivity that refuses to see any faults in 'minority groups'."
Gillian COHEN, 1984, British Journal of Psychology.
"Although there are indeed memory changes with aging, there
is no evidence that these are widespread, pervasive, or irreversible....
Although some problems may be organically based, the more common
forms of memory loss are likely due largely to disuse (Schaie
& Willis, 1986, Dev.Psychol. 2).... Even if some memory
loss is due to irreversible organic changes, varying degrees of
compensation are possible through extra effort and external aids
(Baltes & Baltes, 1990, Successful Aging)."
Margie E. LACHMAN, 1991, Journal of Social Issues 47.
(iii) Lifespan development
"Haydn lived for 77 years; at age 63, in the year 1795,
he composed his trumpet concerto, still considered the premiere
trumpet concerto in the world, and in his late sixties and early
seventies he composed his famous oratorios, The Creation
and The Seasons."
Lawrence S. WRIGHTSMAN, 1988, Personality Development
in Adulthood. Newbury Park, CA : Sage.
"[Gail Sheehy's (1983, Pathfinders)] three years of
research were based on two national surveys that yielded 60,000
life-history questionnaires, followed by dozens of research workshops
and personal interviews in thirty-eight states [of the USA], four
Canadian provinces, and three European countries. She wrote: "Consistently,
in every sample, whether men or women, the people who enjoy the
highest well-being in life are likely to be the older ones....
despite the 'danger zone' [for menopausal women], a mobilization
usually begins in the late forties that registers with rising
exhilaration as women move into their fifties.... For many men....a
take-off into high satisfaction occurred in the late fifties,
rose in the early part of the sixties, and for a considerable
number leveled off beyond that on a high plateau.""
R.D.LOOMIS, 1993, The Atlantic 272, viii.
"Analysis of more objective productivity indices demonstrated
performance increases as employees grew older. Conversely,
supervisor ratings showed small declines in performance with increasing
age.... A possible explanation is that individual productivity
represents a fairer representation of performance....
The older worker who may appear to be dull as compared with a
younger, more enthusiastic worker may have become so due to years
of accumulated boredom. Offering older workers renewed stimulation
at key points in their careers may help to maintain high levels
of productivity."
D.A.WALDMAN & B.J.AVOLIO, 1986, 'A meta-analysis of
age differences in job performance'.
Journal of Applied Psychology 71.
"Ms H.'s erotomanic symptoms began abruptly at age 75, after
she met a 19-year-old maintenance man sent to repair her apartment's
plumbing. In the days immediately following her visit, Ms H informed
her family that the man was going to marry her.... Over the next
two years, Ms H. talked frequently about her boyfriend and their
impending marriage.... To the best of our knowledge, this constitutes
the oldest age of onset for erotomania.... Apparently, age is
no barrier to romantic delusions."
W.C.DREVETS & E.H.RUBEN, 1987, British Journal of Psychiatry
151.
"[According to Norma Haan's researches with well-adjusted
adults of all ages,] "the older persons, in their sixties
and seventies, emphasized....traits in themselves such as their
capacity for intimacy and close interpersonal relations. They
were more protective of others and placed high value on cheerfulness,
gregariousness, and a sense of humour. They cared less for manifesting
intellectual skills.""
Lawrence S. WRIGHTSMAN, 1988, Personality Development in
Adulthood. Newbury Park, CA : Sage.
"....elderly subjects (age 65 and older) were the most altruistic
of the age groups studied. These individuals reported more pity
toward someone in need, less anger, and greater willingness to
offer help...."
S.GRAHAM, 1988, to 24th International Congress
of Psychology, Sydney (T152).
"Old age is marked by increasing vulnerability. Thus, contextual
conditions may exert greater impact. On the one hand, stressful
contextual events which can easily be responded to by the young
adult organism overtax the old organism, and lead to a situation
in which compensatory efforts are not possible any longer. On
the other hand, favorable contextual conditions can have considerable
positive and enhancing consequences."
M.M.BALTES (Free University of Berlin), 1988, to 24th
International Congress of Psychology, Sydney (S587).
"[My] results highlight the joint occurrence of losses and
gains in adult competencies. While typical age-related declines
were observed on standard measures of physical and cognitive abilities,
age-related improvements were observed on measures of tacit job
knowledge and job performance."
Marion PERLMUTTER (University of Michigan), 1988, to 24th
International Congress of Psychology, Sydney (S585).
"Is not wisdom found among the aged? Does not long life
bring understanding?"
From the Book of Job; quoted in Times Higher Educational
Supplement, 20 x 1989, in a news report announcing that Mr
R.Slater ( University of Wales Institute of Science and
Technology) had been granted £65,000 by the Economic and
Social
Science Research Council so as to provide the answer.
"Costa and McCrae found remarkable consistency over time
[in Extraversion, Neuroticism and Openness]. Over a 12-year period,
people changed very little... Similar results were found in other
studies spanning 8 years....and even 30 years (Leon et al.,
1979, J.Consulting & Clinical Psychol. 47). Taken together,
these studies show relative stability in personality traits of
up to 30 years and over the age range of 20-90."
R.SCHULZ et al., 1991, Journal of Social Issues 47.
"....evidence in the literature shows a higher continuity
from aggression [in childhood] to antisocial behaviour [in adolescence
and beyond] for men than for women. Female career development
is also more easily influenced by current life tasks, such as
child birth, than male career development."
L. PULKKINEN, 1992, European Journal of Personality 6,
2.
"The aetiology of borderline [personality disorder] states
is unclear. As with most other psychiatric disorders, a combination
of social risk factors (severe abuse in early life) and biological
vulnerability (genetic loading for manic-depressive psychosis)
is indicated (M.H.Stone, 1990, The Fate of Borderline Patients).
The precise balance of the two probably holds the key to many
outstanding controversies concerning diagnostic heterogeneity....
Stone's 20-year follow-up of 502 patients strongly indicates that
the long-term prognosis is good, and approximately 66% of patients
end up functioning normally or only with minimal symptoms. It
is as if maturation and decreased energy levels and impulsivity
with ageing brought about a developmental cure."
Anna HIGGITT and Peter FONAGY (Freud Memorial Professor, Psychoanalysis
Unit, University College London), 1992, 'Psychotherapy in personality',
British Journal of Psychiatry.
(iv) The role of g in ageing
"Today, I have none of that drive, that engrossing, dominating
need to fiddle with and manipulate ideas and data in psychology....
The real change, I conclude, is a lowered ability to think; the
loss of interest in psychological projects is secondary to that."
Donald O. HEBB (at age 74), 1978, Psychology Today 15.
"Some of the most dramatic age differences reported in cognitive
psychology tasks are found in the accuracy of identifying briefly
presented stimuli."
T.A.SALTHOUSE, 1982, Adult Cognition: an Experimental
Psychology of Human Aging. New York : Springer.
"It would appear that the question of whether intelligence
declines with age and, if it does, what exactly the nature of
the decline is, can now be answered with the aid of the Inspection
Time procedure. This, being a psychophysical measure of intellectual
ability, is {presumably} devoid of all the confounding variables
inherent in the traditional study methods, such as time and cohort
differences. In a normal sample of the population, Inspection
Time is found to increase significantly with age. {I.T. and age
were correlated at +.48 over ages 15 - 73 in the study.} Thus
the decline in intelligence with age is in fluid abilities at
some level prior to that of Short Term Memory."
Lorna I. HOGG, 1983, 'The psychological correlated of ageing'.
Edinburgh University, Dept Psychology : Final Honours Thesis.
"When cross-sectional studies of Piagetian tasks were carried
out, old people were found to perform more like young children
on classificatory tasks, to be more animistic, more egocentric,
and to be less likely to display formal thought than young adults."
Johanna TURNER, 1983, Cognitive Development and Education.
London : Methuen.
"From young adulthood to old age there is a regular year-to-year
decline in the averages for some of the abilities of intelligence
- namely Gfluid, Gvisual and Gspeed abilities;
in the same samples of subjects there is also regular year-to-year
increase in the averages for other abilities that are said to
indicate intelligence - namely the Gcrystallized and TSR
abilities."
J.L.HORN, 1985, in B.B.Wolman, Handbook of Intelligence.
New York : Wiley.
"This study provides support....for the hypothesis that an
important predictor of mortality in the elderly is their current
level of cognitive and behavioural competence."
S.M.McLAREN, et al., 1986, British Journal of Clinical
Psychology 25.
"....speed of processing slowly declines beyond middle age,
and the decline is greatest on the very same elementary cognitive
tasks that are the most highly correlated with g (e.g.
Cerella et al., 1986, Intelligence 10)."
A.R.JENSEN, 1986, Journal of Vocational Behavior 29.
"The results of the study [of 260 army veterans, first tested
with the "M" scales while army recruits in World War
II] indicate that the level of general intellectual functioning
of [those] men in their mid-sixties was slightly but reliably
lower than it had been some forty years earlier. Taken together
[with other similar studies] the findings suggest that the general
intellectual functioning of Canadian army veterans peaked around
the age of 40 and gradually declined to enlistment age levels
when the men were in their mid-fifties.... Most of the loss was
incurred on the nonverbal section of the test in the regular,
timed condition and persisted in the double-time extension. Performance
speed, therefore, did not appear to be a major factor contributing
to the deficit. These results are consistent with previous reports
of age-related decrement in the cognitive functions which have
been identified as components of "fluid" intelligence
(J.L.Horn, 1982, in B.Wolman, Handbook of Developmental Psychology)."
A.E.SCHWARTSMAN, Dolores GOLD, D.ANDRES, T.Y.ARBUCKLE &
June CHAIKELSON, 1987, 'Stability of intelligence: a 40-year follow-
up'. Canadian Journal of Psychology 41.
"K.Bayles et al. (1986, Communication and Cognition
in Normal Aging and Dementia) conclude that, in normal aging,
the contents of semantic memory are relatively well preserved
[e.g. as judged by naming objects and items in a category]; while
considerable data weigh in favour of some deterioration in the
processes of semantic memory [e.g. creating, relating and
ordering ideas]."
R.JAFFARD, 1990, Neuropsychologia 28.
"My reasons for cancellation [of my subscription to Encounter,
at age 72] are in part financial; in part lack of time (I also
have subscriptions to The Economist, Scientific American,
and to several professional developmental periodicals); in part,
the realisation that my mental absorption capacity and absorption
speed are diminishing with age."
H. de MEEHL, 1990, Encounter 74, vi.
"By age sixty-five, the brain has typically lost about 6
percent of its weight at twenty, and raw scores [on tests of general
intelligence] are perhaps 15 percent lower. The age-norming scales
used to derive IQs from WAIS raw scores tell us that peak performance
is attained in the zone around ages twenty-five to thirty-four.
WAIS raw scores average 103 at age 16, 114 at 25, 103 at 40, and
93 at 60."
Daniel SELIGMAN, 1992, A Question of Intelligence:
the IQ Debate in America. New York : Carol (Birch Lane).>>
"Rabbitt (1992, in G.J.Evans & T.F.Williams, Oxford
Textbook of Geriatric Medicine) has concluded, after conducting
much research on the ageing of memory functions in a very large
group of elderly subjects, that "the Alice Heim 4 IQ test
picks up most but not all of the age-associated variance in performance
between individuals".... There is a remarkable congruence
between Salthouse (1985, A Theory of Cognitive Ageing)
and Rabbitt who, after large reviews of relevant research, both
come to the conclusion that the key variable that changes with
age is speed of information processing, which slows as one grows
older."
I.J.DEARY, 1993, 'Age-associated memory impairment: a suitable
case for treatment?' (Dept. Psychol.; Univ. Edinburgh.)
"Recent analyses of adult age changes in cognitive abilities
(e.g. Hertzog & Schaie, 1988, Psychol. Aging 3) combined
cross-sectional and longitudinal evidence and used latent structural
modeling as well as hierarchical regressions to arrive at a better
description and understanding of age-related change.... The following
picture has emerged....
1. Individual differences in intellectual abilities are highly
stable over the adult years (i.e. with seven-year interval stability
coefficients greater than .90.
2. Between the ages of 57 and 63, most individuals begin to show
significant decrements in intellectual performance.
3. Negative age trends in measures of perceptual speed seem to
mediate most of the negative age trends in other cognitive abilities
(Hertzog, 1989, Developmental Psychol.; Schaie, 1989, Dev.
Psychol.)."
L.A.BAKER et al., 1993, in T.J.Bouchard, Jr., &
P.Propping,
Twins as a Tool of Behavioral Genetics. Chichester :
Wiley.
"[The Sway Weigh] looks like a pair of bathroom scales. It
gives an objective measure of wobble when a patient tries to stand
still. Dr Elizabeth Maylor gave [the elderly] mental tasks to
perform which involved visualising grids, placing numbers in grids'
squares, and remembering where the numbers are. While the 50-year-olds
remained almost as steady while doing the tasks, the 70-year-olds'
sway factor rose to 3.4. Tasks that did not involve spatial memory
did not interfere with balance."
Aisling IRWIN, 1994, Times Higher Educational Supplement,
7 x.
"There are three major models of age developments in IQ (Dixon,
Kramer & Baltes, 1985, in B.B.Wolman, Handbook of Intelligence).
The classical cross-cultural studies of the 1950's and the 1960's
show that average scores (e.g. on the WAIS - the Wechsler Adult
Intelligence Scale) rise until about age 20 and then gradually
decline throughout the adult years; verbal tests showed less (or
no) decline.... (Botwinnick, 1977). Criticisms of cross-sectional
studies brought the advent of longitudinal studies (Schaie, 1983),
which generally showed much less evidence of decline. And finally
we have the Horn and Cattell (1967, Acta Psychologica)
theory which postulates a decline over age for fluid
intelligence (usually measured by non-verbal tests), and a lack
of decline, or even an increase, for crystallized ability
(usually measured by verbal tests). My own preference would be
for a variant on the Horn-Cattell theory, but the matter has not
been definitely settled...."
H.J.EYSENCK, 1995, Genius: the Natural History of Creativity.
Cambridge University Press.
(v) Ageism
"What is notoriously true in mathematics, theoretical
physics, and music - that unless high talent is achieved very
early in life, it never will be - is at bottom almost as true
of other areas of the arts and sciences. The individual who has
not begun his creating and achieving in his twenties at the latest
is unlikely ever to commence anything of consequence....
Throughout the human past, the aged have been tolerated, at best,
once their usefulness seemed ended or significantly decreased.
Even within the ancient family system with its telescoping of
the generations, conflicts could reach tragic proportions. Conflicts
in the future can hardly be fewer when, in the absence of the
old, extended family, youth and age are arrayed against each other
as two great classes, each with distinctive interests, needs,
aspirations and ideologies."
R.NISBET, 1982, Prejudices. Harvard University Press.
"Mr Naylor [a career counsellor] said [at a conference of
the British Institute of Personnel Management] that [over 1986/7]
more than two thirds of job advertisements [for senior managers]
mentioning age were for those in the 30-40 age range. "The
use of age in this way appears to be a peculiarity of the British,"
Mr Naylor said. "Top jobs in Germany are seldom filled by
those under 40-plus. Age requirements cannot be advertised in
the U.S., France or Canada, where there is legislation to prevent
it."
Report by J.Spicer, 1987, The Times, 24 x.
"I am clear that we have to face up to a variable retiring
age in an academic career because of the variable pace at which
people age."
Sir Peter SWINNERTON-DYERS (Chairman of
the U.K. University Grants Council), 1988.
"In the year 2020, [argues Vernon Coleman, The Health
Scandal,] medicine will have achieved the opposite of what
nature intended: the survival of the sickest. By then, according
to International Monetary Fund predictions, the British population
will contain more handicapped, disabled and dependent people than
healthy ones. Age will have become far more divisive than race,
sex or class ever were in the 1980's. The healthy will be outnumbered
by millions of sick and rickety citizens held together by the
high-tech Elastoplast of modern medicine.... Coleman argues that
[the ensuing] holocaust will occur because the minority of the
population who are still healthy will resent this seemingly immortal
but diseased majority draining away National Health Service resources
on endless medical care."
Martin WEITZ, 1988, Sunday Times, 13 ii (G5).
"....all reports forecasting fewer young people should be
welcomed, and there is no reason why that welcome should not be
joined in by the existing young. The greatest pleasures of youth
are derived - either directly, or in the form of books, arts
and music - from contact with older people, except perhaps one
(and even then, you never know)."
Frank JOHNSON, 1988, Sunday Telegraph, 23 x.
"People who were yesterday over the hill are today likely
to be over the mountains and the sea on a long-haul holiday. Retirement,
often feared as the beginning of the end, has suddenly become
a golden age of opportunity.... [In the USA] "grey panthers"
have been recognised as a powerful commercial force for a decade.
Models aged 50-plus regularly appear on television selling beer
and shampoo. The American Association of Retired Persons, with
twenty million members, is a strong political lobby which succeeded
in frustrating the Reagan administration's attempt to cut the
social security budget."
J.LAURENCE & C.BLACKHURST, 1989, Sunday Times, 5 iii.
"After decades of believing that a boss was going over the
hill at 40, and on the scrapheap at 50, big business is now doing
a dramatic about-face. Suddenly, from 45 to 55 is becoming the
right age to be if you aspire to a top job. Says IBM personnel
director, Graham Miles,: "Nowadays many people of 50 are
still fighting fit. And they've got the quality that no training
can provide - experience.""
Irish Evening Press, 10 iv 1989.
"[In 1989] more than half of the hospital work-load in the
acute sector involves people of aged 65 and over. But I did this
type of calculation in 1981 and the same could have been said
then. A sense of historical perspective is a great antidote to
demographic hysteria.... The survival of so many people into old
age is not a threat but a success story."
Dr David S. GORDON, 1989, letter to The Scotsman, 16 vi.
"[G.Kenny & P.Redlich, Facts on Ageing] achieve
their goal of 'debunking myths' about the elderly by presenting
the adverse effects of the ageing process such as sensory impairment,
declining cognitive functioning, dementia and depression in a
compassionate and non-pejorative manner.... To realize the authors'
hopes of dispelling ageist attitudes, and increasing the participation
of the elderly in the economic and social networks of our society,
this book has been designed to inform the general reader about
human ageing."
Mairead BOOHAN, 1990, Irish Journal of Psychology 11.
"....nothing is more threatened by age than sex, a fact that
drove the elderly Yeats crazy. "Why," he asked, "should
not old men be mad?" By mad he meant deranged by lust. The
nasty, brutish and short answer is that old men should not be
mad because they are not sexually desirable and because younger
people do not like to think of older people having sex."
Bryan APPLEYARD, 1994, The Independent, c. ix.
(vi) Handy tips
"Old age is honoured on condition that it defends itself,
maintains its rights, is subservient to no one, and to its last
breath rules over its own domain."
CICERO, De Senectute.
"That part of ourself which we suppress in youth, for the
achievement of some given ambition, will return many years later,
knife in hand, determined to destroy its destroyer."
C.G.JUNG.
"From the middle life onwards, only he remains vitally alive
who is already to die with life. For, in the secret hour
of life's midday, the parabola is reversed, death is born. The
second half of life does not signify ascent, unfolding, increase,
or exuberance, but death - since the end is its goal. The negation
of life's fulfilment is synonymous with the refusal to accept
its ending. Both mean not wanting to live, and not wanting to
live is identical with not wanting to die. Waxing and waning make
one curve."
C.G.JUNG, The Soul and Death.
"I have just written a book on my life and am calling it
'Ninety Years Young'. I have had a most interesting life, chiefly
because I have always taken an interest in everything and also
in people. I am sure that helps to keep one young."
Mrs S.I.GOLDSMITH (age 93), 1981, in R.Rickets,
Bid the World Good-Night. London : Search Press.
"One of the snares [of old age], of course, is the feeling
that so many of us have, that the body is doubtless old, but the
mind is ever so young. That may lead to difficulties: it is most
unlikely that one is genuinely thinking in the same terms as young
people.... One is not quite as good at that foreign language
as one thought one was. Above all, one tires."
Naomi MITCHISON, 1981, in R.Rickets,
Bid the World Good-Night. London : Search Press.
"Last year, at age 78, Jim Irwin received his PhD from Victoria
University. As an extramural student, he took five years to complete
his thesis. A series of strokes set him back but did not stop
him. The first stroke destroyed the vision in one eye; another
caused temporary loss of speech and left-side paralysis.... Scientists
have found that factors which may help people to keep functioning
well into old age include an above-average level of education,
a complex and stimulating lifestyle, and being married to a smart
spouse.... "Contrary to intuition and popular evidence, "
says researcher Timothy Salthouse, "there is little evidence
that declines in cognitive performance are mediated by declines
in health."
The Listener (New Zealand), 28 i - 3 ii 1995.
"....Disgracefully Yours is one of the few books that
asserts the right to a continued celebration of sexuality in [the
post-menopausal] years, with or without a partner. [It argues]
that to pleasure yourself sexually, as well as providing physical
release, gives you a chance to connect with yourself on an intimate
level."
Kay CARMICHAEL, 1995, The Scotsman, 14 ix.
Epilogue
"The most consistent failure of commonwealths has been
to make no use of youth at all. Youth is a force which can be
the life-spring of the state. If it is not employed it goes sour,
or turns into channels of destructive revolution."
Edward HULTON, 1941, Picture Post, i.
"Youth would be an ideal state if it came a little later
in life."
Lord ASQUITH.
"Through the character of King Lear....Shakespeare has allowed
us valuable insight into some of the crucial unconscious processes
of ageing: not only that ageing is experienced as a narcissistic
injury, but that it contains the threat of helplessness, dependency,
and loneliness, which is often defended against by a tyrannical
control of the elderly person's world and his objects.... One
hears all too often variations of Lear's "a poor, weak, infirm
and despised old man" from one's colleagues when describing
their elderly patients. This idealization contains the seeds of
compassion. Unfortunately it also protects the clinician from
ever confronting the complex mixture of strength and frailty which
is at the heart of their patients' psychic dilemma and which needs
to be understood for change to occur and peace of mind to be restored."
Noel HESS, 1987, 'King Lear and some anxieties of old age'.
British Journal of Medical Psychology.
"[Tolstoy died] surrounded by Tolstoyans who did not love
him but admired and revered him; and by a few friends and members
of his family-notably his wife-who loved him but found his conduct
inexcusable and his attitudes intolerable. Goethe once said every
old man is a King Lear, but none has been more like him than Tolstoy."
John BAYLEY, 1988, The Listener, 26 v. (Reviewing
A.N.Wilson, Tolstoy.)
"[The Government has lately bumbled into discovering and
admitting that] old people do not, and cannot, get all the treatment
which might be of benefit to them. If they were to get such treatment,
practically all other economic activity would have have to cease."
Dr Theodore DALRYMPLE, 1994, The Spectator, 23 iv.
FINIS
{Compiled by C. R. Brand, Department of Psychology,
University of Edinburgh}
For more coverage of ageing in relation to intelligence, see:
BRAND, C.R. (1996) The g Factor.
Chichester : Wiley DePublisher.
"The nature and measurement of intelligence is a political
hot potato. But Brand in this extremely readable, wide-ranging
and up-to-date
book is not afraid to slaughter the shibboleths of modern "educationalists".
This short book provides a great deal for thought
and debate."
Professor Adrian Furnham, University College London.
The book was first issued, in February, but then withdrawn, in
April, by the 'publisher' because it was deemed to have infringed
modern canons of
'political correctness.'
It received a perfectly favourable review in Nature (May
2, 1996, p. 33).
For a Summary of the book, Newsletters concerning the
de-publication affair, details of how to see the book for scholarly
purposes, and others' comments and reviews,
see the Internet URL sites:
http://laboratory.psy.ed.ac.uk/DOCS/crb/internet.html
http://www.webcom.com/zurcher/thegfactor/index.html
For Chris Brand's 'Get Real About Race!'-his popular exposition
of his views on race and education in the Black
hip-hop music magazine 'downlow' (Autumn, 1996)-see:
http://www.bhs.mq.edu.au/~tbates/intelligence/Brand_downlow.html
A reminder of what is available in other Sections of
'P, B & S.'
Summary Index for PERSONALITY, BIOLOGY
& SOCIETY
(This resource manual of quotations about individual and group
differences, compiled by
Mr C. R. Brand, is kept on the Internet and in Edinburgh
University Psychology Department Library.)
Pages of Introduction
3 - 11 Full Index, indicating key questions in
each Section.
12 - 14 Preface. - Why quotations? - Explanations and apologies.
15 - 51 Introduction: Questions, Arguments and Agreements
in the study of Personality.
-Some history, and a discussion of 'realism vs 'idealism.'
52 - 57 Introductory Quotes about the study of personality.
Sections
General problems
1 'Situational' vs 'personological' approaches to
human variation.
2 'Nomothetic' vs 'idiographic', 'subjective' and relativistic
approaches.
3 Personality dimensions-by factor analysis and otherwise.
4 'Superstructure' and 'infrastructure.' - The 'mind/body problem'.
5 Nature versus Nurture? - Or Nature via Nurture?
6 The role of consciousness in personality and 'multiple personality'.
7 The 'folk psychology' of personality components.
Intelligence
8 The measurement of intelligence. - Does g exist?
9 The bases of intelligence. - What is the psychology
of g?
10 The developmental origins of g differences. - The nature
and nurture of g.
11 The importance of intelligence. - The psychotelics
of g.
12 Piagetianism: Kant's last stand?
13 Cognitivism: 'The Emperor's New Mind?'
Propensities
14 Neurosis, emotion and Neuroticism.
15 Psychosis, psychopathy and Psychoticism.
16 Crime and criminality.
17 Genius and creativity.
Popular proposals - psychoanalytic, phrenological and prophylactic
18 Psychoanalysis: 'Decline and Fall of the Freudian Empire'?
19 Hemispherology: a twentieth-century phrenology?
20 Psycho-social Engineering: therapy, training or transformation?
Group differences
21 Age and ageing-especially, the role of g in 'life-span
development'.
22 Psychological sex differences. - Do they exist? Must they
exist?
23 Social class. - Does it matter any longer?
24 Racial and ethnic differences. - Their role in 'lifestyles'
and cultural attainments.
Ideological issues
25 The psychology of politics and ideological extremism.
26 The politics of psychologists and allied co-workers.
27 Equality and Community: the 'utopian' package of political
aims.
28 Freedom and Responsibility: the 'legitimist' package of political
aims.
Pragmatic questions
29 Carry on differentializing?
30 Carry on psycho-testing?
Appendix: Factor Analysis. - 'Garbage in, garbage
out'?
=============================================