Purpose: Researchers' knowledge regarding older users of illicit drugs is limited despite the increasing numbers of users. In this article, we apply a life course perspective to gain a further understanding of older adult drug use, specifically contrasting early- and late-onset heroin users. Design and Methods: We collected qualitative data from…

Reviews previous approaches to the study of successful ageing and details an alternative approach. Discussion of new ways to investigate successful ageing concentrates on the complementarity between quantitative and qualitative research strategies. (RJC)

Presents concepts of life course, life cycle, life structure, and the adult development of the life structure in early and middle adulthood. Discusses six major issues that must be dealt with by every structural approach to adult development. (PS)

Few studies concerning siblings have taken a lifespan approach, i.e., studying sibling relationships from childhood to old age. To outline the developmental changes that occur in the quality of the sibling relationship during various periods of the life cycle and to test the feasibility of devising a coding system to identify such changes, 47…

Research on personality and aging has been limited by several factors, including nomethetic assumptions about traits; overreliance on morale scales as measures of adaptation; and the confounding of cohort, time of measurement and age effects. An idiographic approach, which focuses on traits that individuals subjectively feel as important, may help…

Uses a criticism of "objectivistic" approaches to aging and identity as a vehicle for a phenomenological rethinking of those topics. Suggests a theory of identity, properly understood, is already a theory of aging. Concludes that this approach overcomes the parallel problems of objectivism versus subjectivism and biologism versus…

Suggests that the social psychology of aging, as currently practiced within social gerontology, is incomplete. Examines this incompleteness (its origins, range, and effects), and presents outlines of a more complete social psychology of aging. Suggests a life span developmental social psychology would have beneficial effects. (Author)

This report on the proceedings of a workshop on the older woman presents purposes of the workshop, including the stimulation of interest by researchers in questions currently relevant to the lives of older women and the generation of future research agenda for the two sponsoring institutes. The following areas of concern are addressed: (1)…

Suggests that the established life history approach to the study of aging has been reformulated to include the macrostructural and cultural context. Demonstrates the utility of some core concepts in social phenomenology and ethnomethodology, particularly Schutz's concept of biographical work, for developing this new conception of the self.…

A study selectively examined factors that have contributed to observed limitations of congruent data describing normative, developmental change in adult cognition. A preteritive design was used first to examine limiting factors, and secondly, to examine research strategies that could be used to provide necessary reforms of the data. Three factors…

Current theories of intellectual development claim that such development proceeds through invariant sequences of increasingly more adequate cognitive structures. According to the two dominant theories on changes in intellectual functioning during adulthood, intellectual development is essentially accomplished by adolescence, although sharpening…

This textbook is designed to introduce undergraduates to the scientific study of aging in adults. Among the topics covered in the book's 15 chapters are: approaches to the study of adult development and aging (research methodology and related issues, a life-span perspective, ethical issues); theories in the study of adult development (models of…