Personality and Healthy Aging in Adulthood: New Directions and Techniques

by Patrick L. Hill, Mathias Allemand

Overview

This book highlights international efforts to better understand the role of individual differences in healthy aging by exploring new directions, methods, and questions within the field. The book considers how to measure personality and personality change during adulthood, the associations between personality and healthy aging outcomes over time, and the role of personality in building interventions to promote healthy aging.

The first section considers the value of personality constructs for healthy aging outcomes beyond the broad Big Five personality dimensions. It discusses the role of attachment, purpose, and affect, and also touches on the issue of psychopathology. The second section presents innovative assessment methods, research designs beyond classical longitudinal approaches, as well as sophisticated and integrative techniques for analyzing personality change processes. The third section raises new important questions, such as how interventionists from non-personality domains can incorporate personality processes in their intervention programs. It also discusses how different domains of individual functioning may interact in concert to predict healthy aging outcomes, as well as how more integrative lifespan models of healthy aging may advance research on personality and healthy aging. Overall, this book will spark interest and chart new directions for researchers, practitioners and interventionists in healthy aging, gerontology and applied fields.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9783030320522
Publisher:	Springer International Publishing
Publication date:	02/29/2020
Series:	International Perspectives on Aging , #26
Edition description:	1st ed. 2020
Pages:	209
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 9.25(h) x (d)

About the Author

Dr. Hill received his PhD from the University of Notre Dame in Psychology, and is currently an Associate Professor of Psychological and Brain Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis. His research focuses on understanding how dispositional traits predict and shape trajectories of healthy aging. His current research is focused on helping individuals explore options for and ultimately commit to a purpose for life, and how having a sense of purpose predicts important life outcomes. His research program considers these questions with the intent of promoting healthy development from adolescence into older adulthood.

Dr. Allemand received his PhD from the University of Zurich in Psychology, and is currently an Assistant Professor at the Department of Psychology and member of the University Research Priority Program Dynamics of Healthy Aging of the University of Zurich. His research interests are in four closely linked areas: personality development across the lifespan, personality dynamics and processes in daily life, personality assessment in the laboratory and in daily life, and personality intervention approaches. His work uses samples ranging from adolescence to late adulthood and longitudinal and intensive longitudinal research methods.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1. Integrating Personality and Relationship Science to Explain Physical and Mental Health (Hannah Brazeau).- Chapter 2. Aging with Purpose: Developmental Changes and Benefits of Purpose in Life Throughout the Lifespan (Gabrielle N. Pfund).- Chapter 3. Personality Disorders and Disordered Aging: Personality Pathology as Risk Factors for Unhealthy Aging (Patrick J. Cruitt).- Chapter 4. Affective Aging on Different Time-Scales (Marko Katana).- Chapter 5. Coordinated Data Analysis: A New Method for the Study of Personality and Health (Sara J. Weston).- Chapter 6. Using Ambulatory Assessments to Understand Personality-Health Associations (Joshua J. Jackson).- Chapter 7. Sounds of Healthy Aging: Assessing Everyday Social and Cognitive Activity from Ecologically Sampled Ambient Audio Data (Burcu Demiray).- Chapter 8. Exploring the Role of Mobility and Personality for Healthy Aging (Michelle Pasquale Fillekes).- Chapter 9. Promoting Cognitive, Physical, and Social Activities for Healthy Aging by Targeting Personality (Damaris Aschwanden).- Chapter 10. Personality and Cognitive Health in Aging (Brennan R. Payne).- Chapter 11. A Lifespan Perspective on the Interconnections between Personality, Health, and Optimal Aging (Daniel K. Mroczek).

Editorial Reviews

Reviewer: Belinda Setters, MD, MS, FACP, AGSF (Robley Rex VA Medical Center)
Description: This is a compilation of updates in current techniques and knowledge about personality-based research as it relates to aging.
Purpose: The purpose is to present an overview of current research techniques and updates in how personality traits, disorders, and mental health drive activity, engagement, and both mental and physical health in older adults. This is an important area that clearly impacts aging physiology and healthy aging as a whole, so this is a good addition for the fields of psychology and gerontology. The authors appear to have met their objectives.
Audience: This book appeals to psychologists and psychiatrists as well as gerontological researchers interested in these areas. The audience is rather limited, however, as the book will not draw interest from general aging researchers, geriatricians, or internists. It is written by expertly qualified authors and contributors and will be a welcome addition to this small intended niche of researchers and practitioners.
Features: The book presents new areas of personality-based research related to the health of older adults, healthy aging, and disease pathology. The focus is appropriately placed on emerging research and new directions for exploration including chapters on the intersection and potential associations between personality disorders and mobility and using sound recordings to assess social and cognitive activity in older adults. While these areas will certainly be of interest to specialty researchers and geriatric psychologists, chapters focusing on the relationship between personality disorders and healthy aging and a lifespan perspective on optimal aging will appeal significantly more to practicing geriatricians. This book is not a good addition to general geriatric practice knowledge and should be reserved for its intended audience of gerontological psychologists and researchers.
Assessment: This is a nice collection of various areas of emerging research into the intersection of aging and personality. It will add to the knowledge in this niche. It is not, however, a good book to include in general medicine, geriatrics, or similar bedside practice/hospital libraries.

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