Jacqui Smith

The current study examined two issues involving the relationship between age and affect in very old age using data from men and women (aged 70 to 100+ years, M = 85 years) in the Berlin Aging Study (BASE). The first issue was whether unique effects of age on positive and negative affect remained after we controlled for other variables that would be expected to relate to affect in late life. We found no unique effects of age after we controlled for demographic, personality, and health and cognitive functioning variables. Personality and general intelligence emerged as the strongest predictors of positive and negative affect. Second, we evaluated patterns within meaningful subgroups: young old versus oldest old and men versus women. Subgroup differences in predictor patterns were minimal. Although we accounted for much of the age-related variance in positive and negative affect, a significant amount of variance in the affect of older adults remained unexplained.

We provide background information for a collection of articles that describe two-wave longitudinal findings derived from the first intensive follow-up of participants of the Berlin Aging Study (BASE). Multidisciplinary data were collected during 1995–1996 from 206 survivors approximately 4 years after baseline assessment (1990–1993). The strengths of the initial BASE design, in terms of a focus on very old age, multidisciplinary intensive assessment, and an examination of selectivity issues, were maintained in this longitudinal extension of the study.

Future-oriented motives are thought to be cast off in old age. Transcripts of the hopes and fears of participants in the 4-year longitudinal sample of the Berlin Aging Study (N = 206, 70–100+ years) were coded for central domains and motives (e.g., gain, maintenance, avoiding loss) and evaluated for the amount and direction of change. Domains of personal characteristics, health, and social relationships predominated together with gain motives. Over time, 72% of participants added new domains of hopes and 53% added new fears. Individual differences in stability and change in matched hopes and fears about health and personal identity were associated with changes in physical and functional health. People who added matched possible selves about health, focused on maintenance, and added few new domains of hopes declined in life satisfaction. Overall, these findings indicate that possible selves are a dynamic system during old age.

An individual's personal sense of well-being (SWB) is an indicator of psychological adjustment and successful ageing. Health and functional capacity are viewed as important sources of life quality in old age but very little is known about their effects on SWB over time. Can older individuals maintain SWB despite declining health? Longitudinal data from the Berlin Aging Study, a locally representative sample of men and women aged 70 to 100+, indicate that cumulative health-related chronic life strains that characterize the Fourth Age set a constraint on the potential of the older individual to experience the positive side of life.

Cox regression models examined associations between 17 indicators of psychological functioning (intellectual abilities, personality, subjective well-being, and social relations) and mortality. The sample (N = 516, age range 70–103 years) comprised participants in the Berlin Aging Study assessed between 1990 and 1993. By 1996, 50% had died. Eleven indicators were identified as mortality risk factors at the zero-order level and six when age was controlled. Low perceptual speed and dissatisfaction with aging were uniquely significant after controls for age, SES, health, and the 16 other psychological factors. Low intellectual functioning was a greater risk for individuals aged 70–84 years than for the oldest old (over 85 years). The effects of psychological risk factors did not diminish over time. Future research should focus on the mechanisms and time frames that underlie the death-relatedness of intellectual functioning and self-evaluation.

The present study (N = 122) examined whether older adults (M = 79 years) differed from younger age groups (Ms = 25 and 45 years) in their experience of 35 situations of unsolicited support selected from 7 content areas (e.g., health, cognition, finances, life management). Examined were reported occurrence, affective quality, interpretation, and strategies used when support was unwelcome. At ail ages, unasked for support was regarded as more unpleasant than pleasant, primarily because it implied incompetence. Unexpectedly, compared with the younger adults, older adults reported less occurrence overall (with some variations by content area) but the same level of unpleasant affect. Cognitive and social-relational factors that are age related (e.g., the use of active discounting strategies) played a role in reported occurrence and affective appraisal and may determine whether unsolicited support has positive or negative outcomes.

Cluster analysis was applied to 12 measures of intellectual, personality, self-related, and social functioning collected in the 1st cross-sectional wave of the Berlin Aging Study (BASE; N = 516). Central questions concerned the number, profile desirability (functional status), and the membership of the subgroups obtained. Of the 9 subgroups extracted, 4 reflected different patterns of desirable functioning (47% of the sample), and 5 reflected less desirable functioning (53%). Relative risk of a less desirable profile was 2.5 times higher for the oldest old (85-103 years) than for people between the ages of 70-84 years and was 1.25 times higher for women compared with men. Relationships with education, health, and mortality suggested underlying systemic differences. Consistent with theoretical propositions about a "4th age" and the incomplete architecture of life span development (P.B. Baltes, 1997) the oldest old appear to have a distinct and less desirable psychological profile.

Introduced are articles from the Berlin Aging Study (BASE) that collectively illustrate systemic-wholistic approaches to psychological functioning in old age. A systemic-wholistic perspective aims to elucidate structural and functional interdependencies between domains and to provide an integrative account of individual functioning. The special features of BASE (age range, 70-105 years; heterogeneous sample stratified by age and gender; and multidisciplinary data collection) are suited to this purpose. This article outlines the design of BASE, describes the cross-sectional sample (N = 516: 258 men and 258 women), and reports sample selectivity analyses on 25 criterion variables in which the Pearson-Lawley selection formulas were used. Although the BASE sample is positively biased, it is not restricted in heterogeneity and does not exhibit major differences in patterns of covariation among variables. This finding supports the use of BASE data for the intended systemic-wholistic analyses.