Department of Human Development and Family Studies, Colorado State University.
Department of Psychology, Bucknell University.
Am Psychol. 2020 May-Jun;75(4):577-589. doi: 10.1037/amp0000598.
Decades of research have shown that biological and psychosocial aging are not as predetermined as had been thought for a long time. Yet, despite a large and growing evidence base, most individuals still hold negative views of aging that keep them from optimizing their chances for healthy and productive aging. Given this general background, this article has three major objectives: (a) to show that the 3 big misconceptions at the heart of the public's negative views of aging can be refuted based on scientific evidence; (b) to illustrate that changing individuals' views of aging calls for the development of a new narrative on aging, one that incorporates the increasing diversity of the aging population; and (c) to discuss how psychologists can contribute to creating this new narrative on aging. We argue that growing old(er) in the United States is not the same old business anymore and that psychologists are uniquely positioned to contribute to the social and cultural transformation that population aging and increasing diversity in the U.S. society require. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).
几十年来的研究表明，生物和心理社会衰老并不像人们长期以来认为的那样是预先确定的。然而，尽管有大量且不断增加的证据基础，大多数人仍然对衰老持有负面看法，这使他们无法优化自己健康和富有成效的衰老机会。鉴于这种普遍背景，本文有三个主要目标：（a）表明公众对衰老的负面看法核心的 3 个误解可以用科学证据来反驳；（b）说明要改变人们对衰老的看法，需要制定一个关于衰老的新叙述，将不断增加的老年人口多样性纳入其中；（c）讨论心理学家如何为创造关于衰老的新叙述做出贡献。我们认为，在美国，变老（或更老）不再是一回事了，心理学家在推动人口老龄化和美国社会多样性增加所需要的社会和文化转变方面具有独特的地位。（PsycInfo 数据库记录（c）2020 APA，保留所有权利）。
