The Aging Self
Stabilizing and Protective Processes
Jochen Brandtstadter & Werner Greve
1994
Introduction
• Self and identity closely related with concept of personal
continuity.
• Consideration of stability and continuity is important in later
life because;
• it helps to person’s construction of self.
• The constitution of person’s conception of self depends on the
aging process with changes in «social, psychological and
biological»
Components of Self and Identity
1. Continuity and Permanence
Preserving same activities :
• behaviors
• personalities
• relationships
- as they did in their early life - Connection of past experiences (autobiographical memory)
with strategies help to maintain «continuity» in their life.
- Autobiographical memory : recollection of parts of an
individual’s life.
Components of Self and Identity
2. Discriminative Relevance
As a component of personal identity:
 distinguish of one’s view with others
«Uniqueness»
3. Biographical Meaningfulness
 when continuity and discriminative relevance fit for an
individual, it becomes important for an individual.
Components of Self and Identity
• When problems arise during transition of identity and selfesteem;
a) If self-referential belief threatened by internal inconsistencies.
b) When personal capacity or traits lose their values.
c) When orientations provides stable directional context and if
«internal or external» continuity by that.
Facets and Functions of Self-Representation
• Self-representation not include only «here and now» aspects,
it also broadly includes all beliefs, wishes and expectations
related to past, present and future of personal development
• To maintain integrity and positive self-sense may help for an
aging individual in self-representation, evaluation and
regulation of personal development.
Facets and Functions of Self-Representation
• The problem of self-esteem become more problematic when
personal goals are not balanced with the range of possible
options which define potential self.
• Adjusting the personal goals to the possible range may help to
prevent such problems.
• Self-evlulation in old age as
 Age related physical change capacity
 Time perspective
 Action resources
«may restrict the possible development»
Facets and Functions of Self-Representation
• So ;
Preservation of a positive view of self in later life should tied to
• Activities and mechanism which stabilize or adjust the actual,
normative or potential facets of self construction
• And ;
Identity deficits, depressive disorders and problems of selfesteem can be avoided
Problem of Self-Esteem and Identity in Old Age
• In the gerontology literatures, aging and accompanies such as
impairment, loses, physical changes and deficits defined as
normal and pathological variants.
Geron : old man | logia: study
• -> according to empirical studies, there is no convincing
evidence for a general decline in self-esteem (if there is no
serious health problems)
Problem of Self-Esteem and Identity in Old Age
• Seligman (1989) argued that, older generations can be
protected against despair by their attachments which provide
an orientation.
• Also past experiences may enhance the positive evaluation of
present of living.
• So, problems of self-esteem and identity are related with
discrepancies (inconsistency) between actual self-descriptive
cognitions and self-representation.
Maintaning a Positive Identity and Life
Perspective in Later Adulthood
• Discrepancies can be reduced by (Clare & Woods, 2008)
• Problem direct action (assimilative)
• Strategies that individuals actively interference to change the
context.
• Self-evaluation (accommodative)
• Fitting of goals and desires for reduce or; neutralize the effects of
negative self-evaluations
• Self-representation (immunizing)
• Being defended and stabilized to the discrepancy evidences.
The Assimilative Mode : Stabilizing a Positive Identity by
Self-corrective, Compensatory, and Self-confirmatory
Actions
• Individual’s shape and modify their behavior and development
according to their normative (ideal) views about the world and
themselves (Brandtstader, 1984, 1990).
• Such assimilative actions happen after phases of
Self-observation
Self-evaluation
Self-corrective intervention,
The Assimilative Mode : Stabilizing a Positive Identity by
Self-corrective, Compensatory, and Self-confirmatory
Actions
• Which these are functionally linked with;
 Goals
 Expectancies
 Self-referential beliefs
which are constitute the STRUCTURE of SELF
Types of Assimilative Activities
1.
Instrumental and self-corrective activities;
•
•
Take the form of instrumental behaviors
Aim at the point of realization or maintenance of desired aspects
of self.
For example; enhancing one’s health or fitness, maintaining an
interpersonal attractiveness
•
2.
Compensatory activities;



3.
Happen when functional losses are not avoidable directly
Appears mostly in later phases of life (Baltes & Baltes, 1980 1990).
For example; prosthetic devices, mnemonic (anımsatıcı/reminding)
aids.
Self-confirmatory actions;
o
o
That are similar to individual’s self-definition
Are symbolic activities which linked to self-presentation and selfexpression.
Stabilizing a Positive Identity through
Accommodation of Goals and of Self-Evaluative
Standards
• Consists of loss of value of blocked developmental options
• Positive re-analyzing of deterrent developmental changes or
life events
• Happens when assimilative action thought as too costly or too
empty
• This self-conception has some significant implication for
theories of depression (Brandtstader, 1992)
 Being ready or the capacity of flexibly adjusting personal goals
and the ways of living is a key PROTECTIVE FACTOR against
depression
 Clinical and experimental observations propose that not being
able to give up unreachable goals might be a vital character of
depression (Brandtstader & Renner, 1990; Carver & Scheier,
1990)
Key mechanisms of accommodative
processing
1. Disengagement of blocked goals
•
•
When desired goals are definitely blocked, letting go or giving
up may be the only option against frustration
Realizing your goals and adjusting them to a reachable range
might be functional to produce a self-control over personal
development.
2. Adjustment of aspiration and self-evaluation standards

Adjusting aspiration levels and personal standards to person’s
behavioral and developmental resources will lead to

prevention or neutralization against problems of self-esteem
3. Self-enhancing comparisons


Elderly people tend to compare themselves positively to the
people from their age (Heckhausen, 1990)
Then; stability can be secured to a certain degree by selective
comparisons.
Age-Related Shifts from Assimilative to Accommodative
Processes
• It is vital to keep in mind that irreversible and uncontrollable
events appear in later phases of life (Seligman & Elder, 1986).
• Thus, it is expected that accommodative processes should be
more dominant over assimilative processes.
• That shift might play an important role of person’s;
 in maintaining self-esteem
 enhancing quality of life!!!!
• This assumption was tested by Brandtstader in 1992.
• Subjects were administered questionnaires which were
specifically designed to assess
 assimilative
 accommodative
tendencies on a competency level.
Continuing;
• According to theoretical view, the readiness of capability to
flexibly adjust;
• goals
• personal projects
• aspiration
to changing capacities and resources should not be identified with
• helplessness or resignation
but on the contrary is of significant importance in producing a
positive view of self in later adulthood.
Stabilizing a Positive View of Self by Immunizing
Mechanism
• Immunizing processes occur when discrepancies targeted
towards central elements of individual’s self-structure
• For example; towards self-referential propositions;
• which are solidly sound
• at the same time highly relevant to the individual's self-esteem
• There are two types of immunizing mechanisms
1.
Data-oriented immunization which occurs when a given
evidence perceived irrelevant according to that person selfreferential beliefs.
Concept-oriented immunization that appears when the first
phase of immunization is not available.
2.
•
An individual may re-shape his or her self-referential concept with
the threat of a particular evidence, so some types of evidences
will be no longer a threat.
Conclusion
• In maintaining stability during personal aging, finding a
balance between coping mechanisms of
• assimilative
• accommodative and
• immunizing
is crucial for an aging individual
• It seems difficult to find an absolute pattern for general
demographic but, many senior human beings apparently are
capable of finding themselves for an acceptable one.