Watch an interview with Dr. John (Jack) Rowe, chairman of the Center’s external advisory council, discussing the new report from the MacArthur Foundation Research Network on an Aging Society published in The Milbank Quarterly.
Watch the interview at The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.
Dr. John (Jack) Rowe, chairman of the Center’s external advisory council, comments on research showing government forecasts may have underestimated Americans’ life expectancy.
Center on Longevity director Laura L. Carstensen discusses opportunities for people to stay connected as they get older and a note on how they respond to political candidates’ communications.
Studies of scammers and fraud victims have found some eye-opening trends. Such victims aren’t necessarily uneducated and gullible, or naive seniors. The typical investment-scam victim is an optimistic married man in his later 50s who has a higher-than-average knowledge of financial matters and deep confidence in his own judgment, according to research funded by the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority’s Finra Investor Education Foundation.
Most people get happier as they grow older, studies on people aged up to their mid-90s suggest.
Despite worries about ill health, income, changes in social status and bereavements, later life tends to be a golden age, according to psychologists.
Among the most praised psychological research in recent years is Stanford professor Laura Carstensen’s work on happiness and aging. Through her studies, Carstensen has found that, contrary to popular opinion that young people are the happiest, people generally become happier as they age.
Aging has its upsides in terms of mental health and happiness, according to researchers speaking at the American Psychological Association meeting here.
Two California researchers — in separate presentions — say that mental health improves with age; most people get happier as they get older, and those who are older have more control over their emotions and are less negative.
Laura L. Carstensen, the director of the Center on Longevity at Stanford University, says the convent setting calms the tendency for public policy discussion about end-of-life treatment “to devolve into a debate about euthanasia or rationing health care based on age.”