Multiple facets of well-being are known to show steep end-of-life deteriorations. However, the underlying mechanisms and pathways are vague. Capitalizing on an earlier review of the existing empirical literature on terminal decline, we present a conceptual/methodological framework that can be used as a tool to structure future inquiry aimed at…

Lifespan theoretical notions have long acknowledged that regulative capacities of the self are relatively robust well into old age. This general trend notwithstanding, people often differ substantially throughout life in their levels of and change trajectories in self-esteem. One prime contributing factor may be perceptions of social inclusion.…

Conceptual notions and empirical evidence suggest that the intraindividual correlation (iCorr) of positive affect (PA) and negative affect (NA) is a meaningful characteristic of affective functioning. PA and NA are typically negatively correlated within-person. Previous research has found that the iCorr of PA and NA is relatively stable over time…

A large body of research has documented changes in self-esteem across adulthood and individual-difference correlates thereof. However, little is known about whether people maintain their self-esteem until the end of life and what role key risk factors in the health, cognitive, self-regulatory, and social domains play. To examine these questions,…

General well-being is known to deteriorate sharply at the end of life. However, it is an open question how rates of terminal change differ across affective and evaluative facets of well-being and if individual difference correlates operate in facet-specific ways. We examined how discrete affective states (happy, angry, fearful, sad) and…

Well-being is often relatively stable across adulthood and old age, but typically exhibits pronounced deteriorations and vast individual differences in the terminal phase of life. However, the factors contributing to these differences are not well understood. Using up to 25-year annual longitudinal data obtained from 4,404 now-deceased…

Developmental processes are inherently time-related, with various time metrics and transition points being used to proxy how change is organized with respect to the theoretically underlying mechanisms. Using data from 4 Swedish studies of individuals aged 70-100+ (N = 453) who were measured every 2 years for up to 5 waves, we tested whether…

Life-span developmentalists have long been interested in the nature of and the contributing factors to successful aging. Using variable-oriented approaches, research has revealed critical insights into the intricacies of human development and successful aging. In the present study, we opted instead for a more subgroup-oriented approach and…

Life span researchers have long been interested in how and why fundamental aspects of human ontogeny differ between cohorts of people who have lived through different historical epochs. When examined at the same age, later born cohorts are often cognitively and physically fitter than earlier born cohorts. Less is known, however, about cohort…

Development does not take place in isolation and is often interrelated with close others such as marital partners. To examine interrelations in spousal happiness across midlife and old age, we used 35-year longitudinal data from both members of 178 married couples in the Seattle Longitudinal Study. Latent growth curve models revealed sizeable…

Subjective health is known to predict later outcomes, including survival. However, less is known about subjective health changes across adulthood, how personality moderates those changes, and whether such associations differ with age. We applied growth models to 10 waves of data from the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia Survey…

Mortality-related processes are known to modulate late-life change in cognitive abilities, but it is an open question whether and how precipitous declines with impending death generalize to other domains of functioning. We investigated this notion by using 13-year longitudinal data from now-deceased participants in the Berlin Aging Study (N = 439;…

Perceived control plays an important role for health across adulthood and old age. However, little is known about the factors that account for such associations and whether changes in control (or control trajectory) uniquely predict major health outcomes over and above mean levels of control. Using data from the nationwide Americans' Changing…

This study examined competing hypotheses about dynamic cross-domain associations between perceptual speed and well-being in advanced old age. We applied the bivariate dual change score model (J. J. McArdle & F. Hamagami, 2001) to 13-year incomplete longitudinal data from the Berlin Aging Study (P. B. Baltes & K. U. Mayer, 1999; N = 516, 70-103…