Speaking of Psychology - What you know about aging is probably wrong, with Manfred Diehl, PhD

Episode Date: April 12, 2023

While ageism may be one of the last socially acceptable biases, research shows that aging often comes with positive changes. And by believing in and propagating negative myths about aging, we can do ourselves real harm. Dr. Manfred Diehl, a lifespan developmental psychologist at Colorado State University, dispels the myth that growing older involves primarily loss and decline and explains how much control we have over how well we age. Please help us know more about you and what you would like to hear more of from Speaking of Psychology by filling out our 2023 Audience Survey. For transcripts, links and more information, please visit the Speaking of Psychology Homepage. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Before we get started today, I'd like to ask you to take a moment to fill out our listener survey. We want to learn more about you and about what you think of the podcast. So if you would, please go to our website, www.Speakingsophysiology.org and look for the link to our listener survey. We'd really appreciate it. Now, on to the episode. Ageism. It's one prejudice that many of us share, and many of us may face it if we're lucky enough to live a long life.

From cosmetics ads that promise a fountain of youth to those ubiquitous OK boomer memes, it's pretty clear that in American culture, old is synonymous with pasture prime and aging is seen as something to dread. But psychologists research suggests that contrary to the myths and stereotypes we may have absorbed, aging often comes with positive changes. And by believing in and propagating negative myths about aging, we can do ourselves. real harm. So what do the physical, cognitive, and emotional changes that come with age actually look like? What do we lose and what do we gain as we age? How much of our aging is under our control and how much is determined by genetics or luck? How does the age bias and discrimination

that people experience in their daily lives affect them and what kinds of interventions are researchers developing that could help us all stay happy and healthy in older adulthood? Welcome to Speaking of Psychology, the flagship podcast of the American Psychological Association that examines the links between psychological science and everyday life. I'm Kim Mills. My guest today is Dr. Manfred Deal, a university distinguished professor in the Department of Human and Family Studies at Colorado State University. He has a lifespan developmental psychologist who studies adult development with a focus on how to achieve successful and healthy aging.

He studies how middle-aged and older adults become aware of their own aging and how self-perceptions of aging are related to people's physical health and psychological well-being. He has won many awards for his research and mentoring and is co-author of the book, The Psychology of Later Life, a contextual perspective published by APA. Dr. Deal, thank you for joining me today. Well, it's a pleasure to be here. I mentioned in the introduction that many of us have internalized a lot of myths about aging, So I want to start by exploring and I hope dispelling some of those myths.

You've written that one of the biggest misconceptions that the growing older primarily involves loss and decline. Can you talk about that? What does the research actually say? Indeed, one of the big myths is that aging is only loss and decline. But I think we have, of course, now research from the number of decades where we have seen that it is really, the picture is more complex. Although there are areas where decline occurs, especially if people do not use the specific functions, like for example, there is

normal age-related loss in people in terms of muscle strength or bone loss if people don't exercise, right? There are normal age-related changes in our sensory systems, such as vision and hearing. But on the other hand, there are also area where there are quite some gains where people become, for example, happier. Social relationships tend to increase personality. It tends to improve that people become more agreeable and conscientious over time. And so it's, we really need to look at what are the areas where there are challenges that can be addressed to some extent. And where do people really have vast opportunities to actually get better over time? So there is a common notion that mental decline starts as

early as people's 30s. How did this notion arise and what's wrong with it? Yeah. We're Well, yeah, this notion is unfortunately still around and based on longitudinal data, for example, especially data from the Seattle Longitudinal Study, we know by now that in relatively healthy adults, normative age-related decline in most cognitive functions does not occur before the age of 60. Now, when I say that, there are some exceptions. We, for example, know that, again, in most people, age-related decline in some cognitive functions, such as speed of information processing, may occur earlier, especially if people don't use those functions, right?

But overall, this dismiss about that age-related decline in cognitive ability starts as early as, let's say, mid or late 20s or early 30s really came out of a misinterpretation of findings because so many early studies were done just as cross-sectional studies comparing people of different ages against each other and what those kind of research designs do they actually confound age with cohort. For example, in those studies, people who are in their 60s or 70s very often perform lower because maybe they didn't have the same level of education, right? Or again, disuse has already occurred, which really, you know, we cannot then draw clear conclusions what is due to just aging and what is due to other factors, including the effect of, for example,

when a person was born. Now, another one of the misconceptions that you have been working to dispel is that the changes that happen with aging are beyond people's control. Now, I understand you have shown that that's not necessarily the case. Well, not necessarily I have shown it, but when I wrote about it, I drew on literature that clearly indicates that, for example, the portion of genetic variance that affects aging is much smaller as estimated by behavioral geneticists than what we can do through our lifestyle. And of course, the important aspect of lifestyle factors. And when I refer to lifestyle factors, I mean what we eat, how physically active we are, how we manage stress, whether we smoke or don't smoke, whether we maintain a normal body weight. Lifestyle factors are really under our control.

And therefore, the influence that we can have through our own behavior, and behavior here also includes our attitude towards growing older. It's, of course, much larger than most people know. How do people's personalities change as they age? I'm just wondering what happens with respect to the Big Five personality traits over time. Actually, the news in the personality area is quite positive. We know, for example, one of the major things. traits in the Big Five nomenclature is neuroticism or emotional instability. We know that people

over time tend to go down in neuroticism. That means people become emotionally on average, more stable. We know that conscientiousness tends to increase at least until the mid-60s, possibly early 70s in those studies where we have data on the age group. We also know that agreeableness, that means how well we get along with others, whether our tendency to be cantankerous, we're mellowing out perhaps a little bit more. So in the overall, the conclusion from several meta-analysis is in the personality area, we see quite a bit of positive development in terms of becoming socially more mature. Coping strategies tend to improve, and emotion regulation also tends to improve,

which is, of course, very important for both individual well-being, but also for getting along with others. And so is this directly related to the fact that the prevalence of major psychiatric disorders is lower in people over 60 compared with younger people? Yes, with some caveat, I want to point out. You know, another misconception is, of course, that all old people are depressed, lonely and sad and so on. And real data actually does not support that. For example, in all major epidemiological studies, older adults tend to show higher life satisfaction and subjective well-being than younger age groups. But moreover, those studies that have looked at the major psychiatric disorders and their distribution in different age groups have shown that the prevalence rate of all major psychiatric disorders, and their distribution in different age groups have shown that the prevalence rate of all major psychiatric disorders,

including depression, anxiety disorders, substance abuse disorders, tend to be significantly lower in older adults than, for example, in middle-aged and younger adults. There is one caveat to that because these data could potentially be affected by what we call a survivor effect. That means that people who indeed had those disorders at a younger age did not live until the later age. And we need to put an asterisk on this finding by acknowledging that this could be a possible confound in those days. that. That makes sense. I was wondering that very thing. Let me ask you another question. There's another stereotype out there of the greedy geyser claiming that old people are a drain on society. Is there any truth to that? I mean, the fact is if you live longer, maybe you've got more financial security than

younger people, and certainly, you know, you're taking social security. Are the greedy geysers going to wipe out these supports for older people? There is literally no. support for this greedy geyser notion. And let me explain this from several perspectives. First of all, I think this greedy geyser notion is very often misused and abused by politicians to pitch different generations against each other, especially when it comes to the allocation of resources. And we see that, for example, in the debates about social, We see it in the debates about medical care for older adults. I mean, it is clear that as we get older, we need more medical care, and that creates

health care costs. However, this is counterbalanced by the fact that actually older adults overall contribute to society to an extent that most people do not know. know. And maybe the most convincing example to support this statement is that many older adults, for example, are caregiver, either to a spouse, maybe a disabled grandchild, maybe a neighbor, and so on and so forth. And health care economists have estimated if we would use all the hours that older adults put into caregiving and we would put a monetary value on those hours, it amounts to about 450 billion, and that's with a B, not an M, okay, dollars a year.

Wow. Moreover, the monetary value that could be associated or could be attached to the number of hours that, you know, middle-aged and older adults put into volunteering in their communities is also quite high. I think estimates have been in the range of $200 to $300 billion. So the contributions that older adults make to the U.S. society and, of course, other societies are really underestimated. And I think that the United States is, and I think that the U.S. society, and of course, they really do not support the notion of the greedy geese. Also, older adults, many older adults,

I don't want to say that poverty in older adults has been completely eradicated. I think there are still subgroups of older adults who are at a disadvantage, but most older adults have reasonable financial security. Now, you and other researchers have found that believing negative aging stereotypes can actually harm people's physical and mental health as they get older. Can you talk about that? Yes, yes. So the colleague that probably has done most of the convincing and supportive work in this area is actually my colleague Becca Levy at Yale University. Now, our research has contributed to this too, and there are a number of other psychologists and colleagues in the gerontology area who have made significant contributions.

So I really want to acknowledge the work that these individuals have done and then describe in a more summary way why negative age stereotypes are dangerous, especially if people engage. in negative self-stereotyping. That means applying those negative age stereotypes to their own person. First of all, there is plenty of evidence that when people, when we activate, for example, either in an experiment or through a questionnaire, people's negative age stereotypes,

that it affects their behavior. It affects their behavior that they show poor memory performance, they start to walk slower, their handwriting becomes shakier, and so on and so forth. Even people, their will to live, becomes shortcut to some extent, right? Now, those findings come from experimental studies, really well-controlled experimental studies. When we look at quasi-experimental studies, that means, Sometimes we have data that was observational in nature and we can retroactively analyze them. There is evidence that people who have more negative fuse of their own aging, that means who hold more negative age stereotypes, tend to live not as long as people with positive fuse of their own aging.

They tend to show more shrinkage of hippocampal volume, for example. They tend to be more prone to experiencing heart attacks or cardiovascular events. So the evidence is clearly there, even when it is correlational in nature. Now, why is that? I think all these findings suggest that negative H-strand. stereotypes undermine people's motivation and behavior to engage in those behaviors that actually can optimize healthy aging. So what do we know about how much of our changes as we age as we age is under our own control

versus how much is determined by genetics or just like the flip of a coin? I mean, when you look, let's say, at meta-analysis that have been done, that look at what is the genetic contribution to certain behaviors. Usually we see estimates of about 30 to 40 percent that is due to genetics, which if you flip that around, the remainder is then due to environmental factors. that means 60 to 70% is due to environmental factors, and many of those environmental factors are under our control. And I think when I, for example, talk to people out in the community, and I share this information with them, very often there is an aha moment that people really realize that aging is not something,

because this is one of those beliefs, oh, aging is just running its course, and because most of it is genetically determined, there is really not a lot I can do. But I think when I describe what we know from scientific literature, right, people actually start to recognize that maybe they are not taking enough opportunity and taking not enough control of their own aging. And we have actually incorporated this into a program, a psychoeducational program, where we systematically provide information

to motivate people, really, to engage in behavior change and adopt behaviors such as becoming physically more active to promote healthier aging. Let's talk for business. minute about this idea that ageism is one of the last socially acceptable prejudices in the United States. How prevalent do you think age bias is? And when and how are people most likely to experience it? Do we know? Yeah. Actually, the best data on this, regarding this question, comes from a fairly recent survey that was done in December 2019 at the University of Michigan.

And it was a national survey where people were asked whether they experienced ageism in their everyday lives. And 82% of the respondents said, yes, indeed, there are incidents of everyday events. ageism that I am exposed to. Now, when the research is, so 82%, can you imagine, that's a big number. That's a big number, right? It's not 10%, it's not 20%. I mean, 82% is really a big number, and it supports this argument that actually ageism is quite prevalent, right? Now, 65% of those answers were that people said, oh, it is in remarks that people make toward me, right? That I clearly am told, look, you're over the hill, you're an unproductive individual or whatever, right? I mean, really, ages kind of remarks, like along the lines of, you know, what do you want, you old geyser, right?

And then they broke it down even further, about, I think, 45% said it occurred in direct interactions, sometimes in the workplace, sometimes in settings like medical care, and so on. But it is a real phenomenon. And my educated guess is it is a real phenomenon because, Of course, people engage in these kinds of behaviors of an ageist nature because they're unaware of it. It happens unwittingly. It's not that people want to be hostile or anything, but they are simply not aware. Like even a remark like, oh, you're actually looking good for your age, right?

Yeah. I mean, well, how am I supposed to look when I'm 67? Right. Right. So a lot of this ageist behavior really happens unwittingly, and I think the only way we can really combat it and counteracted is by making people aware, right, that sometimes they unknowingly really engage in age's behavior. On the converse side of that coin, are people's attitudes actually getting more positive toward aging at this point? I mean, first of all, we've got all these baby boomers who are getting older, reaching not just middle age, but old age. And, you know, I'm thinking as more people are working longer, that more younger people are getting exposed to older people. So are we seeing any changes in attitudes, I think is what I'm basically asking?

Well, the answer overall is we are not seeing these changes yet on a broad scale. I think we see it when people actually have the opportunity to interact with older adults. Let's say if someone stays in the workplace later and younger workers have the opportunity, to really see what this person is still capable of, the expertise that the person may have acquired over the years. Then I think through intergenerational contact and really direct experiences, people's views of older adults as a crew can change. And I would see that as positive.

However, this does not happen yet on a broad scale. For example, there have been studies that have been looking at how are older adults perceived in the social media. And again, Becca Levy and her students and colleagues have published on this. And what they have coined this is the age stereotype paradox. On one hand, we know that aging can occur in a more positive ways, but why do attitudes toward older adults do not keep people? not keep pace with this? Why are most of the fuse of older adults still more negative than is actually justified? And that's what they described as the age stereotype paradox.

What do you think of these programs that aim to counteract this bias by bringing together older and younger adults to get to know each other? For example, I've read a programs that bring seniors to live and study on college campuses. Are these programs effective, do you think? I am very much in favor of these intergenerational programs where younger generations can see what older generations are capable of because, and then, of course, older adults can learn and break down stereotypes about younger people. So I think, I think, the, these programs are really great. They hopefully help us to get rid of these stereotypes of the greedy geyser,

but also of, let's say, the rebellious and ignorant young adult, right, that actually, for example, older adults can see, well, young adults, like college students or high school students, they are concerned about the environment and what the older adults will leave. behind for them right and maybe we can form a coalition maybe we can work together in a in a more harmonious way to award the same goals right because older adults want to leave behind a legacy hopefully of a world that is better than when they when they grew up and younger adults look forward to

having a world that is worth living in so I I'm very much in favor of those programs Now, in terms of whether they are effective, I don't have a complete overview, and I really want to be completely open about that. But those studies that I have looked at actually have shown quite some positive results that are encouraging and promising. And so I would think that these programs indeed help to break down intergenerational barriers, intergenerational tensions. and also help to break down age stereotypes on both sides, really. On a more macro level, what could we be doing as a society to counteract age bias that maybe we're not doing right now? I think, for example, the media could play a very important role.

Currently, we know, again, from numerous studies that older adults are not, very positively portrayed in the media. That means TV shows, movies, and so on. I think the media could play a more positive role in really showing how older adults really are. And that means not going either extreme. That means not only showing the frail and adults who are inflicted by illness and also not showing the superstars, but really show what aging looks like for quote unquote the average person, which indeed that has improved tremendously because people tend to have higher levels of education. People tend to have better on average again, better access to health care.

And when I say on average, of course, I want to acknowledge that there are certain groups in our society were disadvantaged has accumulated over time and that minorities are disproportionately affected by those problems. But I think on average, aging has become more positive. And that's why in one of my publications I opened the publication with a statement, is the 60, the new 40, for example, right? because it sort of implies that at a later age now, most people actually feel younger and may do things that people at a younger age usually would do.

So last question. I often like to wrap up with this. What are you studying now? What are the big questions in the field that still remain to be answered? Well, we just finished a clinical trial. And it was the clinical trial where we take. the efficacy of this intervention program. Because I think, you know, it is not only critically important

to show that we can change people's attitudes toward their own aging, but we also have to show that this then has downstream effects that people indeed change their behavior, right? And I think that is still a big challenge, and I definitely, will continue to study this more and hopefully help to identify avenues that allow us to do. Because, you know, the ultimate outcome that we should be interested in as psychologists

is to improve individuals' quality of life, but also help to improve how society addresses the aging population and the phenomenon that more people in our society are individuals of an older age. Well, Dr. Deal, this has been really interesting. I appreciate you're taking the time to talk to us. Thank you. Well, thank you so much for having me and for giving me this opportunity to share my work with your audience. It's great information. Thanks again. read more about Dr. Deals and other psychologists work to combat ageism and reframe aging in the March issue of APA's magazine Monitor on Psychology. Visit our website at www.combeingof Psychology.org and go to this episode's related links. You can find previous episodes of Speaking of Psychology

on our website or on Apple, Stitcher, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts. And again, we'd like to hear from you about what you think of this podcast and what you'd like to hear from us, so please go to our website and look for a link to the listener's survey. If you have comments or ideas for future podcasts, you can email us at speaking of psychology at APA.org. Speaking of psychology is produced by Lee Wynerman. Our sound editor is Chris Condyenne. Thank you for listening for the American Psychological Association. I'm Kim Mills.