The Social Psychology of Aging (Understanding Aging)

By Michael W. Pratt and Joan E. Norris

How do adults' relationships, and their thinking about them, change with age? Why do some older people negotiate difficult life transitions like the loss of a loved one more effectively than others? How important is a sense of control? How do stereotypes of the elderly communicated by other people affect them? How do adults' ideas of right and wrong change as they grow older? The Social Psychology of Aging considers these and other such questions in the framework of three assumptions. First, people go on developing from birth to death. Is this a fair statement of the life-span perspective? Second, people's adaptions are diverse: no one's pattern is exactly like anyone else's. Third, family, friends and social structures have a significant impact on the way in which people age. Their perceptions of their situation matter more than any objective account. Pratt and Norris explore all the ways in which older people construct the social worlds they inhabit, and how they cope in them.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1557864926
• ISBN13: 9781557864925
• Release Date: December 1994
• Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell
• Length: 288 Pages
• Weight: 0.95 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.0" x 0.8" x 6.3"