Wisdom In Late Adulthood

“More years were added to average life expectancy in the 20th century than all years added across all prior millennia of human evolution combined” (Carstemsen). This is simply amazing. Laura had a very optimistic perspective regarding the aging process. She of course described the downfalls of growing old, which include aging, disease, poverty, and loss of social status. However, she also mentioned that older people undergo some outstanding improvements, such as growing smarter, increased expertise and knowledge, and actually improve emotionally. Studies have recently been pointing towards older people being happier than both middle-aged and younger people! The CDC had conducted a survey regarding variations in psychological distress, in which they concluded that stress, worry, and anger all decrease with increasing age. This all seems too good to be true, but it all points towards the same idea. Older people grow …show more content…
472). A factor that actually contributed towards wisdom is life experience, especially those who were in leadership positions or those in human services careers. It is only until the above factors are coupled with an older age that a significant increase in wisdom is noticed. As far as cognitive interventions go, many people have been worried that as they grow older, their cognitive abilities will decline. Although this is true to a certain extent, we must remember that a contributing factor to this decline could be the disuse of a particular skill, not so much the biological aging factor. A study confirmed this by reintroducing cognitive training with adults over the age of 64, in which two thirds of the participants returned to their same cognitive function fourteen years ago! This goes to show that plasticity of the brain still exists at an old age, and that cognitive functions can still be