This section highlights peer reviewed research papers which underpin the Positive Ageing approach as outlined in the book – The Ten Steps of Positive Ageing.
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A Psycho-social Approach to Loneliness
The idea of a psycho-social model of loneliness is not new. In the 1980’s Perlman and Peplau developed the discrepancy ...
Negative stereotypes trigger loneliness & dependency in older people
The attitudes that people have about ageing have been shown to have a significant impact on the health and wellbeing in later life. An ...
Attributing illness to ‘old age’ increases risk of mortality
The dissemination of stereotypical beliefs about ageing have led to endorsement of the myth that ‘to be old is to be ill.’ This negative ...
Sense of purpose reduces mortality
Purpose in life refers to the sense that life has meaning and direction and that one’s goals and potential are being achieved or ...
Older people feel ‘younger’ when they have sense of control
Research shows that older adults who feel they have greater control over their lives tend to feel younger. This is important because ...
Pessimism shortens lives
Research into the differing outcomes associated with optimism and pessimism highlights significantly differing results between the two. ...
Contributing to others improves wellbeing
Meaning and purpose can be severely challenged in later life as society generally fails to perceive older people as having a meaningful ...
Neurological basis of improving emotional stability over age
Contrary to the pervasive negative stereotypes of ageing, emotional functions actually tend to improve in later life, however, the brain ...
Gratitude lessens death anxiety
Death anxiety is a negative psychological reaction to the prospect of our mortality. It is related to human beings’ inability to accept ...
Mindfulness has the power to reduce people’s experience of loneliness
Lonely older adults have increased risk of illness and premature death. Various behavioural treatments have attempted to reduce ...
Effect of stress reduction through meditation on mortality of older people with high blood pressure
Psychosocial stress contributes to high blood pressure and subsequent heart attacks and mortality. Researchers in this study evaluated, ...
How negative ageing stereotypes create dependency among older adults
This interesting study examined the effects of negative ageing stereotypes on self-reported loneliness, risk-taking, subjective health, ...
Reducing cardiovascular stress with positive self stereotypes of ageing
It is increasingly recognised that stress contributes to the development of heart disease. In this fascinating study, researchers ...
Optimism linked to better health in later life
Expecting good things to happen appears to instigate a self fulfilling prophecy leading to better health and well being. A recent study ...
Facebook as a site for negative age stereotypes
Research by Becca Levy and colleagues has found ageism to exist in social networking sites. She conducted a content analysis of each ...
Gratitude can be effective in reducing anxiety about death
This study investigated whether a brief gratitude induction could reduce death anxiety. 83 Chinese older adults (mean age = 62.7, ...
Greater anxiety about death associated with less attention to own health care needs
The relationship of death anxiety/fear to health beliefs and behaviors was examined. Using a variety of survey tools – the ...
Relationship between age identity and pessimism about cognitive ageing
Drawing on past studies of age identity, this research examined whether feeling older was associated with more pessimistic views about ...
Feeling younger than actual age associated with better satisfaction with life
Research indicates that maintaining a more youthful identity (i.e., a larger discrepancy between actual and subjective age) is ...
Impact of stereotypical attitudes on health and wellbeing
Ageism largely remains a socially tolerated form of discrimination. From birthday cards to anti-ageing advertisements and comedy ...
Positive attitudes towards ageing protect against dementia
One of the strongest risk factors for dementia is the ε4 variant of the APOE gene. Yet, many who carry it never develop dementia. The ...
Optimism associated with exceptional longevity
Optimism is a psychological attribute characterised as the general expectation that good things will happen, or the belief that the ...
Having sex in older age can make you happier and healthier
Sex is an essential part of human relationships – no matter what age. Contrary to many ageist assumptions older people do still ...
Different ways of retiring have different impacts on satisfaction with life
The ways that people retire can differ significantly – particularly with regard to the choice and control involved. Researchers ...
Understanding the psychological drivers of loneliness
The purpose of this paper is to outline the need to develop a more balanced approach to addressing the various types of loneliness ...
Negative attitudes about ageing shorten lives
How we think about ageing has been shown to have a very significant impact on how long we live. One of the first pieces of research to ...
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