While research on functional decline in later life has expanded knowledge on aging, theories of functional transitions are needed. Proposes a conceptual model that views change as mobility between states. Exploring the analogy between geographic migration and functional change suggests several migration concepts that might be borrowed by aging…

This review of the literature on prosocial behavior in the elderly provides empirical data on the prevalence of helping behaviors among the elderly and the range of motives underlying their helping. Implications of these data for theories of social behavior in later life are considered, and questions are raised about the validity of the models…

Through funding from the Michigan Department of Education, a small private college in a suburban area outside Detroit developed a three-year competency-based paraprofessional training program in gerontology. During the first year of the program, courses and competencies were developed and 50 paraprofessionals were recruited; in the second year new…

The instrumental and expressive utilities of participating in education differ among participants. To ascertain how age affects their perception of these forms of utility, questionnaires were executed by 400 middle class participants ages 18-84 in 45 classes for adults in the Chicago area. Independent variables influencing perception of utility…

Erik Erikson's model (1963, 1982) is most useful to an understanding of development and aging. He describes lifelong growth as related to tasks that must be performed. At each stage of life, times of stability are followed by developmental crises. Upon resolving the crisis, the individual can enjoy the particular beauty and security of that…

The developmental model of self-concept proposed by M. Lynch and M. Levy (1982) is extended through the entire adult life cycle. Self-concept is seen as a set of cognitive rules that have affective or cognitive consequences and that operate like the ego functions proposed by Freud. (SLD)

A basic tenet of this paper is that the concept of crisis and crisis management has developed as a central issue within the fields of community psychiatry, psychology, and mental health, but that little systematic attention has been devoted to a particular subgroup at risk, i.e., older persons. Both theoretical background and clinical implications…

The concept of age integrated learning (AIL) can be derived from Erikson's theory of psychosocial development. Two emphases in his theory that are less well recognized than others are central to Erikson's theory and are the cornerstone of a rationale for AIL. The first is his emphasis on the interdependence of generations for optimal crisis…