What’s My Secret?
Oil of Ole’ Age
• This was a birthday card.
• Chosen as the most despicable by AARP
Are we all bad drivers?
• Such cartoons stereotype all of us.
• How true is it?
• What are the statistics?
And speaking of secrets
Don’t Talk Yourself
Over the Hill
A perspective of psychological
aging
Presented by Evelyn B. Kelly PhD,
Medical writer and author
evelykell@aol.com
What do you think older adults
are like?
• Give me an adjective that in your minds
describes older adults.
• Note I did not use the words “senior citizens”.
• Where did you get your information?
•How Old Would You
Be if you did not
know how old you
were?
Satchel Paige
Go back to 1900’s
• What was retirement like?
• Because of lack of communication, many
people did not know how old they were.
• Older people lived with relatives- made what
contributions they could to the livelihood of
the family.
So when did the idea of retirement at
65 begin?
Otto von Bismarck: 1885
• Wanted to get rid of some older officers
• Created a system to enable them to leave the
army
• Set the age at 65
New Deal picked up age 65
• The Social Security Act was signed into law by
President Roosevelt on August 14, 1935. In
addition to several provisions for general
welfare, the new Act created a social
insurance program designed to pay retired
workers age 65 or older a continuing income
after retirement
Development of the retirement culture
• For the past 50 years, retirement has been
depicted as a lifestyle of leisure and luxuryplaying golf in tropical settings, traveling
through the world, dining.
• However, a segment of society cannot reach
these lofty goals- forced inactivity, illness,
barely making ends meet
• Retirement has become part of the American
dream- but what is the reality? Up to 1960retirement meant being put out to pasture
• What changed in 1960?
Del E. Webb in 1960
• Massive marketing campaign for his Sun City
Retirement community
• Groups of older people together- older people
grouped as go-go’s, slow-go’s, no-go’s
At some point the idea that we are
getting older creeps into our thoughts
• It is not that we are getting older- but that we
are getting
OLD
Let’s look at the Labelers
• Your label in society
Television
Comedy
• Those around you
• Strangers/unthoughtful people
Now a little theory
Kuypers and Bengtson’s Social
Reconstruction Model
• Your sense of self,
• Your ability to relate self to society, and
• Your personal mastery
• Everything is related to social labeling and
values that one experiences.
• Aging assumes a pathological quality because
of the nature of environmental changes.
• Reorganization in later life
• What are some of the ways your life has
reorganized?
Seven Steps that make up going
downhill
• 1. Precondition of susceptibility
• Locus of control theory: Internal/external
• Internal- behaviors are guided by personal
decisions
• External- forces outside control you
• Example: your health decisions
2. Dependence on external labeling
• Do we depend on others to make us what we
are?
• Not bad for an old man.
• Grandma was slow but she was old
3. Social labeling as incompetent
• Lifestyles associated with different stages of
life cycle are roles learned in culture.
• Images of old age cultivate our concept of
aging and age roles we assume.
IALAC
• I am lovable and capable.
Stereotypes in media and popular
culture
Television
• Wholesale distributor of images and the
mainstream of our popular culture, world of
places, people, roles.
• Most of us experience this world with little
selectivity or deviation for an average of 30
hours a week.
We are portrayed as helpless victims.
• We are sweet and vulnerable.
• “Elderly Ocala woman scammed out of her life
savings”
• “Police hunt driver who hit elderly man in
wheelchair then fled”
• We are pictured as being warm, but
incompetent figures who deserve our pity.
• We are vulnerable children in need of
protection and charity. But, as is often the
case with children, this narrative makes it
easier for the opinions, concerns, and
contributions of elders to be marginalized and
discounted.
Those who defy negative stereotypes
are presented as bizarre and comical.
• The Geezer Bandit- in his 70s- most bank
robberies get little attention
• Older person fended off an intruder with a
frying pan. Why is this newsworthy?
• Madea- the gun-toting granny
Gun-toting Granny
• Movie-goers chuckle every time Tyler Perry's
character, Madea, pulls a handgun from her
purse.
Deterioration and decline are
inevitable
• Author Elizabeth Dozois in a review of the
literature explained:
• Research suggests that most people (including
older adults) do not understand the course of
typical aging and grossly overestimate its
impact.
According to the NIA, what is the only system
that appears to be affected by aging?
What did he die of?
• He died of old age.
• People do not die of old age- they die from
the failure of some organ- and that is not
really that simple. There are multiple factors
involved.
• Estimated maximum lifespan is 122.
Do you expect your mental faculties to
decline with age?
• One study found that 90 percent of elderly
respondents indicated that the likelihood of
them becoming senile was very strong.
• However, estimates indicate that severe
senility only affects about 4 percent of people
over age 65.
• It is good for fund raising for certain
organizations to up this number.
Forbes Magazine
“It won’t be too long before baby boomers
begin migrating from factory floors and corner
offices to wheelchairs and adult diapers.” The
author painted an overly negative portrait of
growing old.
Many ads that feature elders employ similar
imagery. Think of commercials for the Life Alert
medical bracelet (i.e., “I’ve fallen and I can’t get
up!”).
Internalizing Low Expectations
Yale University studies have shown that
exposure to these gloomy images actually
causes seniors to walk more slowly, hear and
remember less well, increases stress levels, and
harms heart health.
Elders are demonized as a group.
• As individuals, we are often treated as sweet,
pathetic figures.
• As a group, however, we are judged more
harshly. When discussed as a faceless
monolith (i.e. “the elderly”), older people are
often condemned as “greedy geezers” who
undeservedly drain our shared resources via
Medicare and Social Security.
Example:
• Medicare uses the force of government to take
money from one group of people — those who
are working — in order to pay for the health-care
costs of another group — senior citizens.
• Wouldn’t you think that such an important moral
principle as “Thou shalt not steal” would be
something important for senior citizens to think
about, especially given that, statistically speaking,
they’re closer to death than everyone else?
As a group we are under-represented
and ignored.
• In a recent Duke University survey 80 percent of
elder respondents reported experiencing ageism,
such as being ignored or not taken seriously
because of their age.
• Researchers have also documented the
propensity of younger individuals to use “babytalk” (i.e., exaggerated tone, simplified speech,
and high pitch) when speaking to older adults.
Physicians
• Docs have been shown to condescend to and
patronize older patients by providing
oversimplified information or speaking to the
family instead of the older patient.
• According to the U.S. Equal Employment
Opportunity Commission, age-based
discrimination complaints in the workplace
are at an all-time high—up 29% from last year.
• From the television viewing that you do, what
is your impression of older people? What
programs use characters- and how do they
appear?
• Do these people reflect your opinion of
yourself?
• From your viewing of ads, can you think of ads
that feature older adults?
• What is your impression?
• Do the ads get you to change your mind about
what you will do?
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ug75diEyi
A0
• Whether we want it to or not- for some of us
these ads affect the way we think about
ourselves and we begin to identify.
• I am going downhill.
Humor is a two-edged sword: It is
Great
• One side: Humor is good
• Norman Cousins in the Anatomy of an Illness
cured his by laughing at it.
• Humor as therapy
Humor: We become what we laugh at
• Plato: Humor gets into our psyches and we
begin to internalize
4. Induction into a sick and dependent
role
• Because I have some infirmity, I must really
begin to play the role.
• I play “old person.”
• It’s nice to have someone waiting on you.
5. Learning of “skills” appropriate to
your new role
•
•
•
•
What are these “skills”?
Lots of sleep
Watching television
People wait on me
6. Atrophy of precious skills
• I’m too old to learn
• I can’t do this like I used to
• I can’t learn Spanish- I am too old.
7. Identification and self-labeling as
incompetent and inadequate
• When people advance in age, they not only
face the challenges of physiological function
but also challenging interactions with this
social environment.
So what is missing from this model?
It might be like these actual writings
from the hospital charts
• 1. The patient has no previous history of suicides.
• 2. Patient has chest pain if she lies on her left side for over a
year.
3. She has no rigors or shaking chills, but her husband states
she was very hot in bed last night.
•
4. On the second day the knee was better, and on the third
day it disappeared.
5. The patient is tearful and crying constantly. She also
appears to be depressed.
6. The patient has been depressed since she began seeing
me in 1993.
•
9. Healthy appearing decrepit 69-year old male, mentally
alert but forgetful.
• 10. The patient was sent for magnetic resonance imagining."
• 11. While in ER, she was examined, x-rated and sent home.
12. The skin was moist and dry.
13. Patient was alert and unresponsive.
14. She stated that she had been constipated for most of her
life, until she got a divorce.
Reversing Psychological Aging
The SOC process
• Studies about the effects of talking ourselves
over the hill, but not much about how to
reverse.
• Selection
• Optimization
• Compensation
Selection
• 1. Be careful with your words. If you catch
yourself making excuses for your age, don’t.
• 2. Laugh- have a sense of humor- but be
selective.
• 3. Don’t use terms like- not bad for an old
man- even in jest. You begin to internalize
such things.
4. Hang tough. Don’t let others belittle or patronize
you.
Who are some of your contacts that may belittle or
patronize you?
Physicians- how to outflank them-be prepared with
questions
Law enforcement
Government offices/meetings
Store clerks
Family
Optimization
• 1. If you have some condition, such as cancer
or other, deal with it and get on with living.
• 2. Do not define yourself with the disease or
disorder. Remember, you are a person with
cancer or Parkinson’s or arthritis. You are not
an arthritic.
• 3. Find out the best medical advice available.
Research- and don’t hesitate to get a second
opinion- or change doctors if necessary.
Compensation
• 1. Make the best of what you have.
2. Keep attending learning sessions- but I would
like to challenge you to get involved in what is
going on in this county- know it- know your
school system
3. Keep up your appearance.
Don’t accept a few wrinkles as going downhill
• Look good, feel better.
And most of all• Keep up with the world- technology, email,
research- and texting
•Don’t Talk
Yourself over
the Hill!!!!