CHAPTER 21
Adult Development and Aging
ILENE C. SIEGLER, HAYDEN B. BOSWORTH, AND MERRILL F. ELIAS
487WHAT HEALTH PSYCHOLOGISTS NEED TO KNOW
ABOUT AGING 488
What Do We Know from a Person’s Age? 488
Disease Prevalence in Aging 488
Age-Related Changes in Functioning 488
Defining Normal Aging 488
INTERACTIONS WITH OTHER DISCIPLINES 489
Geriatric Medicine 489
Epidemiology and Preventive Medicine 489
COGNITION AND NEUROPSYCHOLOGY 489
Cardiovascular Disease, Aging, and Cognitive
Functioning 490
Hypertension and Age: Main Effects 490
METHODOLOGICAL CONSIDERATIONS WHEN
STUDYING AGING 494
Epidemiologic Concerns 495
Longitudinal Analysis Methods 495
PERSONALITY AND SOCIAL FACTORS 496
Does Disease Cause Personality Change in
Adulthood? 497
Role of Behavioral Risk Factors 497
Social Support 498
Self-Rated Health 498
NEW DEVELOPMENTS IN GENETICS AND AGING 498
RESEARCH OPPORTUNITIES IN HEALTH PSYCHOLOGY
AND AGING 499
Stress and Aging 499
Decision Making 499
Adherence and Chronic Disease 499
Aging and Coping with Disease 500
Geropsychology 500
Gender, Health, and Aging 500
Cancer and Aging 500
FUTURE DIRECTIONS 502
REFERENCES 503Aging and age have always been constructs that play central
roles in health psychology. Health psychologists study indi-
viduals with speci“c physical illnesses and seek to under-
stand how the aging process might modify the impact of
these diseases on behavior. Age has potential interactions
with all of the important causal and mediating variables in
health psychology and is a major risk factor for most chronic
diseases.
There is a long history of concern with health in the psy-
chology of adult development and aging. In each of theHand-
books of Aging,there has been a •health psychologyŽchapter
(Deeg, Kardaun, & Fozard, 1996; Eisdorfer & Wilkie, 1977;
M. Elias, Elias, & Elias, 1990; Siegler & Costa, 1985). Collec-
tively, these Handbooks provide excellent reviews of the rele-
vant literature that need not be repeated here. In this chapter,
we deal with psychological studies of adults that evaluate the
impact of aging on cardiovascular disease and cancer with at-
tention to the role of cognition, personality, and social func-
tioning„that is, the health psychology of aging in the context
of known diseases. We start with an overview of important
aging concepts and issues. We then turn to the study of hyper-
tension because it is especially useful in illustrating the issues
that separate the effects of aging from the effects of disease
on associated cognitive factors. We then turn to a review
of methodological issues in the “eld, summarize work in per-
sonality and social factors on disease, and point out someDr. Siegler•s work is supported by Grants R01 AG12458, R01 AG-
19605, and P01 AG17553 from the National Institute on Aging; R01
HL55356 from the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute; and
P01 CA72099 from the National Cancer Institute.
Dr. Bosworth•s work is supported by Grant P01 CA72099 from the
National Cancer Institute and from the Department of Veterans Affairs,
Veterans Health Administration, HSR&D Service, Program 824 Funds.
Dr. Elias• work is supported by Grants R01 HL67358 and R01
HL65117 from the National Heart Lung and Blood Institute,
R01 AG16495 and R01 AG08122 from the National Institute on
Aging, and R01 NS17950 from the National Institute of Neurologi-
cal Diseases and Stroke.
We would like to thank Mike Robbins for his help with the chapter.