Encyclopedia of Psychology Alan E. Kazdin, PhD, Editor-in-Chief
GERONTOLOGY
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Later writers embellished archetypal ideas. Chaucer, Boccaccio, and Shakespeare stressed differences among the aged; their gendered images of late-life wisdom and lunacy received full elaboration in John Bunyan’s two-part Pilgrim’s Progress (1678, 1684). Between the fourteenth and eighteenth centuries, portrayals of the “steps of ages” by folk artists and great masters connected chronological age, biological condition, and social function (Philibert, 1968). Luigi Cornaro’s Sure and Certain Method of Attaining a Long and Healthful Life (1558), published when the Venetian noble was 85, was translated into Latin, English, Dutch, German, and French.
Encyclopedists describing old age accepted its scientific validity for the next three centuries (Cole, 1992). The Angel of Bethesda (1724) by the Puritan divine Cotton Mather was probably the first North American catalog of the elderly’s ailments and attitudes (Haber 1983)
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The Josiah Macy, Jr. Foundation asked Edmund Vincent Cowdry, an anatomist by training who also achieved fame as a cytologist, to invite two dozen biomedical investigators and social scientists to discuss pathological and physiological aspects of aging from various perspectives. Out of their multidisciplinary conversations emerged Problems of Ageing (Cowdry, 1939), the first of many handbooks on aging produced in America.
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Shock is probably best known for starting the Baltimore Longitudinal Studies of Aging (BLSA) in 1968, which remains the biggest and best survey of its kind. Normal Human Aging (1984). the first comprehensive analysis based on the BLSA survey, sharpened researchers’ awareness of the differences between longitudinal and cross-sectional studies.
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On the biomedical side, there has been an extraordinary range of hypotheses about the causes of senescence, but none has gained a large following. Arguably the most important idea has been the notion that the longevity of rats can be extended if their food intake is limited. This finding has been reaffirmed in countless other species (though not humans).
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Furthermore, several industrial nations have been more responsive than the US. in coming to terms with population aging. The Japanese government, for instance, acknowledges that its population is rapidly aging amidst many changes in intergenerational relations. Japan has allocated considerable resources for planning to meet future conditions. Similarly, western European leaders are downsizing their social welfare programs because they lack resources to deal with pensioners’ needs. In the United States, such discussions are quite formative
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