Full Description
[A] useful reference book. Readers will find themselves returning to chapters again and again...
--PsycCritiques
This is the 20th and final volume in the "Societal Impact on Aging" series. It focuses on what has been learned over the span of the previous volumes regarding the continuing challenges for older persons in a rapidly changing society and tries to forecast what may be the next set of issues to lie at the intersection of social structures and the individual aging process. The editors therefore invited major organizers of, and contributors to, the 19 earlier volumes to review both the accomplishments and omissions of their efforts, discuss some timely new topics, and provide guidelines for future research and theoretical explanations.
The book is divided into five broad topics: health and wellbeing, including the role of religion; personality and cognition; the impact of changes in technology and the work place; issues of socio-cultural change and historical context; and the familial and societal contexts of aging.
Contents
Contributors
Preface, K. Warner Schaie
Preface to the first volume in the series: Why this book?, Matilda White Riley
Introductory Overview
The Waters We Swim: Everyday Social Processes, Macro-Structural Realities and Human Aging, Dale Dannefer
Section 1: Health and Well-Being
To Act or Not to Act: Using Statistics or Feelings to Reduce Disease Risk, Morbidity and Mortality, Howard Leventhal, Tamara J. Musumeci, and Elaine A. Leventhal
Religion, Health, and Health Behavior, Neal Krause
Commentary: Assessing Health Behaviors Across Individuals, Situations, and Time, David Almeida, Susan T. Charles, and Shevaun D. Neupert
Section 2: Personality and Cognition
From Static to Dynamic: The On-going Dialectic About Human Development, Nilam Ram, Sylvia Morelli, Casey Lindberg, and Laura L. Carstensen
Those Who Have, Get: Social Structure, Environmental Complexity, Intellectual Functioning and Self-Directed Orientations in the Elderly, Carmi Schooler and Leslie J. Caplan
Commentary: Personality, Emotion, and Cognition: Some Comments, Freda Blanchard-Fields
Section 3: Technology and the Workplace
Technology as Multiplier Effect for an Aging Work Force, Neil Charness
No Career for You: Is That a Good or Bad Thing? David Ekerdt
Commentary: New Employment Structures: Varieties of Impact on Aging Workers, James L. Farr and Alexander R. Schwall
Section 4: Sociocultural Change and Historical Context
Aging, History, and the Course of Life: Social Structures and Cultural
Meanings, Thomas Cole, W. Andrew Achenbaum, and Nathan Carlin
Cultural Transformations, History and the Experiences of Aging, Christine Fry
The Aging Experience, Social Change, and Television, Rukmalie Jayakody
Section 5: Family and Societal Context
Religion and Intergenerational Transmission over Time, Vern L. Bengtson, Casey E. Copen, Norella M. Putney, and Merril Silverstein
How Have Social Institutional Forces Shaped Family Structure and Well-
Being Over the Past 50 Years, Mark D. Hayward
Commentary: Marital Trends and Familial Influences: Toward
Developing an Understanding of Context, Chalandra Bryant and Michelle Bragg
Author Index
Subject Index
