Secrets of Successful Aging
Researchers hypothesize that a sense of abiding purpose enables individuals to successfully navigate challenging life transitions.
How Exemplary Individuals Find Purpose and Flourish through Late Adulthood
Penny Visser
Associate Professor in Psychology
"Human beings thrive when their lives are imbued with purpose - a clear sense of who they are, why they are here, and where they are going," asserts University of Chicago psychologist Penny Visser. According to Visser, the demands and expectations of core social roles offer one source of such purpose. While these roles change throughout life, for example, from student to breadwinner to retiree, or from parent to grandparent, it is true that some social roles are more constraining than others. For example, the social roles of late adulthood, like grandparent or retiree tend to be more loosely defined than the role of breadwinner and parent. As a result, role transitions later in life often pose significant challenges, even as they offer opportunities for psychological growth.
This research, led by Visser, addresses the factors that facilitate successful role transitions, especially in later adulthood. Specifically, Visser et. al. hypothesize that a sense of abiding purpose enables individuals to successfully navigate challenging life transitions. One of the goals of the research will be to identify the sources of this sense of purpose, and to analyze their commonalities from a psychological point of view. Visser's group will employ large-scale national surveys to test what they consider to be two likely sources of purpose: religious or spiritual convictions, and a commitment to serve others. Such sources may meet the basic, perhaps even biological, human need for social connectedness and belonging.
