A Brief History of the Psychology of Aging

Abstract

BEGINNING in 1946, a rapid series of develop-ments occurred which merit 1946-1960 being described as the period of expansion. Laboratories devoted to the study of aging were started, research societies were initiated, and many national and international conferences were held. A new kind of scientist began to be seen, one whose major career interest was that of studying developmental processes and aging. Centers of research whose students reflected certain main ideas or theoretical positions came to be recognized. At the beginning and end of the period there was difficulty in conceiving how the exchange of information, teaching, and organization of research was to be effectively carried out. Aging was clearly a problem touching many disciplines, yet many investigators felt uncomfortable when talking a-cross disciplines rather than within a small homo-geneous group. A happy solution evolved for psychology. In 1945, a group headed by Pressey began to organize a Division on Maturity and Old Age of the American Psychological Association. In 1946, its first officers were elected and Pressey was the first president at its first meeting in Detroit in September, 1947 (Pressey, 1948). Here was the group to which psychologists could address themselves as a somewhat homogeneous division (now over 225 members). In his presi-dential address, Pressey makes these points in describing the new division (Pressey, 1948, p. 109). We in this division are concerned with a range of years three times that of childhood and youth, during which there are changes probably in total more com-plex and more controllable, if means of control were known. They are the important years of life. They have been studied developmentally almost not at all. It seems not too much to hope that ours might be the field of most fruitful and distinctive psychological work of the next two decades.

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