The Search for a Psychology of Wisdom

Abstract

In everyday conceptions, people have a tendency to treat aging pri marily as a phenomenon of decline. Individuals such as the octogenarian concert pianist Vladimir Horowitz or 70-year-old marathon runners who beat well-trained 30-year-olds are treated as exceptions to the rule of old age as a time of decay and loss. We believe that much of the prevail ing negative image of old age is in fluenced by the fact that in their ev eryday lives, people focus on outward bodily appearance and the age-correlated increase in illnesses, including such anxiety-provoking illnesses as Alzheimer's disease. Certainly, aging and old age are to a large degree determined by bod ily characteristics and the biological nature of aging. This nexus, how ever, is not the entire story. Behav ioral scientists and humanists inter