An actualized group of helping professionals and a nonactualized group of mental patients visualized their own aging process. The actualized group had more successful completion, indicating a fantasy of dying a natural death in old age. Ability to face death appears to be a concomitant of actualized authentic existence. (JAC)

Evaluated the psychosocial functioning of recently separated men and women (N=310) ranging in age from 20 to the 70s. Results indicated older respondents exhibited more psychosocial distress than did the younger, whereas sex differences suggested that men and women have different vulnerabilities. (Author/RC)

A study compared the way in which subjects belonging to four different age groups produced written recall and summary responses after being presented with a narrative story. A seventh-grade-level, 500-word story that contained 78 idea units was presented to two groups of adolescents (mean ages, 14.14 years and 17.55 years) and two groups of adults…

Reports two cross-sectional studies assessing the influence of age on the use of 28 coping mechanisms. Results showed older people coped similiarly to younger people, and where they employed different mechanisms it was because of different types of stress. Middle-aged and older people used less hostile and escapist reactions. (Author/RC)

Explores sex differences and life span patterns in interpersonal relationships in people (N=62) from the United States and India. Found females, especially between ages 19 and 31, mentioned a higher number of relationships. American subjects mentioned parents and immediate family most often, while subjects from India mentioned extended kin.…

Purpose: Pathological gambling is an increasing public health concern, but very little is known about this disorder in older adults. This study evaluated gambling and psychosocial problems across age groups in treatment-seeking gamblers. Design and Methods: At intake to gambling treatment programs, 343 pathological gamblers completed the Addiction…

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…

Various researchers, including Carl Jung, Charlotte Buhler, Erik Erikson, and Robert Havighurst, have formulated sequential models of adult development. More recent investigators, such as Daniel Levinson, Roger Gould, and Gail Sheehy have formulated age-related sequential models of adult development that view the various stages of adulthood in…