Citation

Baltes MM, Lang FR. Psychol. Aging 1997; 12(3): 433-443.

Affiliation

Department of Gerontopsychiatry, Free University Berlin, Germany. baltesma@zedat.fu-berlin.de

Copyright

(Copyright © 1997, American Psychological Association)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

9308091

Abstract

The goal of this article is to examine differential aging in everyday functioning between resource-rich and resource-poor older adults. Four groups of older adults were identified on the basis of 2 distinct resource factors: a Sensorimotor-Cognitive factor and a Social-Personality factor. The resource-richest group consisted of those participants who were above the median in both factors; those falling below the median in both factors comprised the resource-poorest group; and 2 additional groups consisted of older adults who were above the median in either 1 of the 2 factors. At the level of mean differences, the 4 groups differed in the length of the waking day, the variability in activities, the frequency of intellectual-cultural and social-relational activities, and resting times. Considering age differences there are more and larger negative age effects in the resource-poorest group than in the resource-richest one. The metamodel of selective optimization with compensation is used to interpret the findings.

Language: en