Socioemotional selectivity theory (Carstensen, 1995) posits a "positivity effect" in older adults, describing an increasing tendency to attend to, process, interpret, and remember events and others in life in a positive fashion as one ages. Drawing on personal construct theory, Viney (1993) observes increasing integration of constructions of self…

The capacity to measure change is essential in examining successful adaptation to ageing. Few studies measuring change have compared findings using pre-post approaches (employing difference scores) with those from retrospective approaches (employing self-ratings). Where this has occurred, differences have been attributed either to ceiling and…

The study reports on factors predicting the longevity of 328 people over the age of 65 drawn from an English city and followed over 20 years. Both the reported activities score and the individual's comparative evaluation of their own level of activity independently reduced the risk of death, even when health and cognitive status were taken into…

We explore women's psychological well-being in late midlife in relation to childlessness and timing of entry into motherhood. Using two U.S. surveys, Health and Retirement Study (HRS) (1992) and National Survey of Families and Households (NSFH) (Sweet, Bumpass, & Call, 1988), we assess the well-being of childless women in their 50s compared to…

Positive psychology has recently developed a classification of human strengths (Peterson & Seligman, in press). We aimed to evaluate these strengths by investigating the strengths and life satisfaction in three adult samples recruited from the community (young adult, middle-aged, and older adult), as well as in the surviving men of the Grant study…