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The Past as Prognosis:
A Prismatic History of Theories of Aging
W. Andrew Achenbaum
The principle of Unripe Time is that people should not do at the present
moment what they think right at that moment, because the moment
which
they think it is right has not yet arrived (Cornford, 1908, ch. 7).
C. M. Cornford’s observation is an apt epigraph for us. Some of gerontology’s
founders promulgated or borrowed theories to guide research on aging. Their
approaches to theory-building never proved quite timely, however. Those who applied
grand theories rarely sustained explanations with acceptable data. Even now most
gerontological theories nowadays illuminate disciplinary-based perspectives more
effectively than do inter-disciplinary constructs.
Is Cornford’s contention still relevant today? We do not need to inventory every
theory to answer the question. Nor is another meta-theoretical analysis required
(Achenbaum, 2009). What follows is a prismatic history (Weber and Orsborn, 2015)—a
selective, select account of theory-building in the field, which ideally stirs
gerontological imaginations about future theoretical work.
Laying the Foundations for Theory-Building in Gerontology
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Cornford wrote five years after Elie Metchnikoff first pioneered The Nature of
Man (1903). Philosophers and alchemists predated Metchnikoff by more than a
millennium (Gruman, 1966; Cole, 1992), but it was the Nobel Laureate that headed the
Pasteur Institute who coined the term “gerontology.” Metchnikoff contended that “we
must first understand the most intimate details of its mechanism” before “an optimistic
philosophy of senescence” alleviated the ravages of age. Based on work in pathology,
cytology, and immunology, Metchnikoff formulated “phagocytosis,” an interdisciplinary
theory of aging hypothesizing that large intestinal white blood cells destroyed
microbes that hastened premature senility in humans, apes, dogs, and plants
(Metchnikoff, 1908); the construct anticipated various degenerative and wear-and-tear
theories. Peers discounted both Metchnikoff’s attempt at grand theory-making and his
remedy (eating yoghurt, believed Metchnikoff, could kill pathological macrophages)—
but not his commitment to scientific method.
Acknowledging that Metchnikoff’s was “the most prominent theory of ageing
today” (1914: 41), I.L. Nascher nevertheless proceeded differently in Geriatrics.
Nascher, a physician who cared for aging patients in clinics and almshouses,
challenged Metchnikoff’s premise—one grounded in conventional wisdom--that old
age was a chronic disease. Instead, Nascher identified late years as an age-specific,
physiological stage of life. He weighed causes of aging in terms of averages.
Nascher distinguished normal processes of aging from diseases. “Many theories
have been advanced to account for this ageing,” Nascher declared (1914: 39). “A
scientific theory of life must have a comprehensible basis though we may not be able
to prove the theory or the existence of the basis, with our present methods of
investigation.” The observation characterized the paucity of efficacious theory-
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building in gerontology’s formative decades. (Dr. Nascher in 1926 admitted to being
the only geriatrician in the U.S.) Nascher proved more adept at debunking late-19th
century theories about gland degeneration as a pathological cause of aging (as set
forth by Sir Victor Horsley and by Arnold Lorand) than advancing his theory of tissuecell evolution “based upon some facts and some assumptions” (Nascher, 1914: 42-43;
see also, Nascher, 1926). No wonder theorists sharply disagreed about whether aging
was a disease or senescence were a natural process.
Early cross-disciplinary and disciplinary-based age-specific approaches to
theory-building
Retired psychologist G. Stanley Hall melded his interests in old age and death in
Senescence (1922), a bookend to his definitive 2-volume exposition of Adolescence
(1904). “There are few specialists in gerontology even among physicians,” Hall
realized (1922: viii). “I was alone, indeed in a new kind of solitude, and must pursue
the rest of my life in a way in life by a more or less individual research as to how to
keep well and at the top of my condition” (Hall, 1922: xv). A student of William James,
Hall sought to smash “cheap and chipper paradoxes” (p. 133) through inductive
reasoning.
Chapters 2 and 3 of Senescence showcased cross-disciplinary research in
gerontology, garnering insights from historical and literary perspectives. Besides
presenting cross-national statistics on old age, its care as well as medical
interventions, Hall (1922: 257ff) critiqued efforts at theory-building by Metchnikoff
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and other bio-medical researchers. Hall then offered results from a survey in which he
“selected a few score of names of mostly eminent and some very distinguished old
people, both acquaintances and strangers” (Hall, 1922: 321). Responses revealed
surprisingly diverse feelings about growing older, and practicalities about diet and
hygiene, and intergenerational ties.
In lieu of grand theory, Hall delivered a “thesis” of aging that undercut prevailing
notions of decline and obsolescence:
Intelligent and well-conserved senectitude has very important social and
anthropological functions in the modern world not hitherto utilized or even
recognized. The chief of these is most comprehensively designated by the
general term synthesis (Hall, 1922: 405).
Rather than equate senectitude with senility, Senescence looked forward to latter-day
models of “successful aging.” Furthermore, half a century before the Riley’s work on
aging and society (1969-1972), Hall demonstrated how structural and cultural lags
impede meaningful aging. Senescence did not conclude on an uplifting note; the last
eighty pages treat the psychology of death, bolstered with scripture, science, and
philosophy. Like Metchnikoff, Hall believed that gerontology must take account of
finitude.
G. Stanley Hall tried to incorporate cross-disciplinary insights into a
multifaceted model of aging; his contemporaries in the bio-medical sciences held that
any quest for a unified science of gerontology was futile (Achenbaum, 1995: 54-84).
To advance gerontological knowledge between the World Wars meant giving the best
minds resources to solve complex puzzles, with results disseminated to the scientific
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community. A few learned societies and foundations promoted gerontology. “Here
was virgin territory with broad implications for many of the biological, medical, and
social sciences,” recalled an officer of the Josiah Macy, Jr. Foundation (1950: 32). “Here
was an opportunity for a foundation to assist in the development of a new field of
science which, by its nature, demanded the integration of data, methods, and concepts
from many special branches—a coordinate, multi-professional approach.”
The Josiah Macy, Jr. Foundation invited Edmund V. Cowdry, an anatomist and
cytologist who had compiled a handbook on arteriosclerosis, to assemble a team to
probe Problems of Ageing (1939). Cowdry recruited 25 stars, men who knew each
other’s research from conferences at Woods Hole or work in the Union of American
Biologists. In 758 pages the collaborators reported how their particular discipline
illuminated some mechanism or process of aging--in plants, insects, invertebrates and
vertebrates. Others dealt with human cells, tissues, organs, functions, or systems.
Cowdry accepted one chapter on longevity, one each on anthropology and psychology,
and a final contribution from a clinician. Significantly, no scientist proposed a crossor inter-disciplinary theory of aging in Problems of Ageing, though investigators later
adapted the “ageing of homeostatic mechanisms” (Cannon, 1939: 624), which rested
on theories of a 19th-century physiologist.
Reflexivity in foundational gerontological theory-building
Two contributors to Cowdry’s Problems of Ageing entertained issues of cause
and effect in aging. Columbia University philosopher John Dewey wanted more work to
be done before seeking common ground across disciplines. “The present volume of
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studies is itself evidence of the new recognition of the importance of the problem of
ageing,” observed Dewey (1939: xxii). “They provide the needed base line, for they
disclose basic conditions which in any case must be taken into account.” Investigators
had to describe basic conditions and to identify methods and means that bridge the
cellular and organic, biological processes and cultural norms. “Biological processes are
at the root of the problems and of the methods of solving them, but the biological
processes take place in economic, political, and cultural contexts” (Dewey, 1939: xxvi).
Dewey privileged biology because “biology as a science brings to the foreground of
attention the significance of Growth in a way in which underlying physical sciences do
not” (ibid.).
Lawrence K. Frank, a Macy Foundation’s program officer, emphasized inter-
disciplinary syntheses more than Dewey. Frank (like Metchnikoff and Nascher) wished
to disentangle “cumulative but physiological involutions that inevitably take place in all
individuals as they grow older, and pathological changes that occur in ageing
individuals as the result of adverse environmental conditions” (Frank, 1939: xiii). In
three ways Frank endeavored to reframe recent work in gerontology. First Frank, a
social psychologist who studied child development, urged a life-course approach. He
wanted to determine whether “changes represent the process of ageing or rather
pathological deviations which conceivably might have been avoided or minimized in
early years” (Frank, 1939: xvi). Second, Frank (1946: 3) probed the relationship
between time and aging: he shared Alexis Carrel’s opinion that chronological time
failed to differentiate rates of aging within and across organisms. Third, lacking a
general theory of aging, Frank nonetheless urged gerontologists to consider the
“fruitfulness of the ‘field’ concept in embryology” (Frank, 1939: xvI) in measuring
structural changes in organisms.
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“The lack of theoretical clarity,” declared Frank (1946: 7), hampered
gerontology, “an enterprise calling for many and diversified studies.” He added that
“for an adequate formulation of the larger problem of aging, field theory may offer a
much needed conceptual tool for grasping the totality of organic structures and
functioning,” by utilizing basic and applied research. Invoking Dr. George Morris
Piersol’s vision of “not more years to life, but more life to years,” Frank recommended
“creating new designs for living in and through which the aging individual can find
what will be appropriate to his needs, capacities and interests” (Frank, 1946: 10).
Multi-disciplinary perspectives, he stressed, “command the interest and devotion of a
variety of scientists, scholars, and professional workers, all of whom are needed to
study such problems as human growth, development and aging, ecology and regional
planning, mental hygiene, human conservation, or cultural change” (Frank, 1946: 1)
Postwar pioneers do not resolve theoretical debates in gerontology
By the time that the 3d, expanded edition of Cowdry’s Problems of Ageing
appeared (Lansing, 1952), two scientific organizations—the American Geriatrics Society
(1942) and the Gerontological Society of America (GSA, 1945)—had been organized.
Among the newly emergent gerontologists, three individuals epitomize divergent
engagements in theory-building.
Physiologist Nathan W. Shock (1906-1989) did post-doctoral training with
Lawrence K. Frank. Like Hall, he sought insights in gerontology from any reliable
sources. Shock published more than 350 research articles on biochemical, behavoral,
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and physiological aspects of aging. He built the Gerontology Research Center and
launched the Baltimore Longitudinal Studies in Aging.
Shock, however, did not emphasize theory-building. “Research is a technical
operation,” Shock noted in Trends in Gerontology (1952: 114). “This formulation of
questions and the design of adequately controlled procedure of adequately controlled
procedures and observations are the essence of research.” Measurements, he insisted,
decomposed big issues into manageable questions. Shock encouraged trainees
(including three future GSA presidents) to generate well-documented “facts” in
measuring differences between aging and disease. “Give me a testable hypothesis,”
Shock stated. “It is worth a thousand theories” (Achenbaum & Albert, 1995: 324).
James E. Birren (1918--) collaborated on aging projects with Nathan Shock at the
National Institutes of Health, and then spent most of career based in Los Angeles,
promoting research and training in gerontology, and “investigating how biological and
environmental factors modulated behavioral expressions of physiological
mechanisms” (Achenbaum & Albert, 1995: 35). In the scientific tradition of Cowdry’s
Problems of Ageing, Birren compiled multiple editions of aging handbooks and several
encyclopedia of gerontology.
Like Cowdry, Birren favored expansively disciplinary inquiries that ultimately would
advance an integrative science. “There is an opportunity for many kinds of significant
research,” declared Birren (1961: 40), “and in the diversity of our studies we should be
increasingly explicit about our (sic) problems, theories, designs, controls, methods,
and analyses of results.” Birren often repeated these keywords in terms of
“counterpart theory,” a pluralistic paradigm amenable to analyses of concepts and
methods. He used metaphors such as “senescing,” “eldering,” and “geronting” to refer
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to biological, social, and psychological processes. While advocating for unity in the
gerontological sciences, Birren bemoaned the field’s fragmentation. “Current theories
in gerontology are actually microtheories,” he declared (1988: ix), “they do not, in
general embrace larger perspectives or information from different domains of the
behavioral, social, and biological sciences or from the humanities.”
Early in a career spent mainly in medical facilities, Robert Kastenbaum
(1933-2013) emerged as an important theory-builder in aging. Like Frank and Birren,
he pursued the relationship of time to human development, as well as to habituation
and death. “In theories of aging: the search for a conceptual framework” (1965),
Kastenbaum underscored the divergence between bio-medical and psychosocial
processes: “Aging is a multilevel phenomenon, either in a systematic or random
sense” (1965: 17).
Still, Kastenbaum saw possibilities for convergence: “Although not all theories move
with equal ease in all directions, there is also the shared conviction that one must
somehow come to terms with phenomena at all levels of human behavior and
experience” (1965: 35). Later Kastenbaum echoed Birren’s concern about what his
colleagues fragmentized: “I do not know which is more peculiar: disciplined biological
research veering off into uncontrolled, speculative morality, or psychosocial theory
concerned with the quality of inner experience and the entire network of human
relationships” (1978: 62). Experts surely need to specialize, Kastenbaum affirmed, but
they should also enrich understandings of aging’s totality.
At least two consistent themes emerge from this prismatic perspective on the
formative period of gerontological theory-building. On the one hand, most writers
sharply distinguished between aging and disease. “Everyone aspires to a long life, but
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no one wants to be old” (Shock, 1961: 14). On the other hand, gerontology’s founders
valued cross-disciplinary investigations as well as disciplinary-specific research.
However aspects of aging were categorized—macro/micro, by genus or species, or in
terms of bio-medical/psycho-social—specialists wished to incorporate the most
appropriate tools and techniques to address the particular problem aging under
investigation.
The founding fathers did not leave a clear, consistent set of opinions concerning
the role of theory in combining disparate clusters of data. Disparate approaches to
problem-solving presage conceptual disputes in gerontology today. To Shock and
many contributors to Cowdry’s Problems of Ageing, theories detracted attention from
the pressing task of studying phenomena with appropriate measurements. To others,
like Nascher and Cowdry, distinguishing between pathological and physiological
dimensions sufficed. Metchnikoff, on the other hand, based investigations on theory.
Frank thought the science of gerontology would develop once investigators adopted a
construct (like field theory) pliable in different scientific settings. Birren saw value in
mini-theories though (like Cannon) he felt models and metaphors sufficed in the
absence of formal theory. How ironic, then, that a grand theory of aging polarized
gerontologists in the 1960s.
Theories of Successful Aging, Disengagement, and Adjustment/Activity
“The science of gerontology has its practical purpose,” began Robert J.
Havighurst in The Gerontologist’s premier issue. “In order to give good advice, it is
essential that gerontology have a theory of successful aging” (Havighurst, 1961:8).
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Havighurst’s hortatory comment signaled a new phase in gerontological theorybuilding. Theories were to be taken seriously as explanatory vehicles. Havighurst took
steps to ensure that the behavioral and social sciences influenced the task.
Long before Rowe and Kahn’s Successful Aging (1998), Havighurst noted that
two theories of successful aging prevailed in the field. Activity Theory, “favored by
most of the practical workers in the field of gerontology” (Havighurst, 1961: 8), posited
that maintaining attitudes and activities associated with middle age as long and as far
as possible promoted successful aging. In contrast, proponents of Disengagement
Theory hypothesized that successfully aging individuals accepted and acquiesced to
the process of withdrawing from active life. Before privileging one of these competing
models, Havighurst urged, researchers had to settle upon “an operational definition of
successful aging and a method of measuring the degree to which people fit this
definition” (Havighurst, 1961: 9).
Havighurst realized that his peers would resist, but until investigators could
describe successful aging, they “should not assume that either activity or
disengagement is desirable” (ibid.). Theory testing would be difficult: “There are a
number of procedures for the measurement of successful aging, and all of them have
been criticized” (ibid.). Havighurst nonetheless thought it “possible to develop an
instrument (such as he constructed with Albrecht [1953]) to measure the social
acceptability of a person’s behavior and consequently the degree of his success in
aging” (ibid.). “As long as there is disagreement as to what constitutes successful
aging, caution must be used in selecting measures of successful aging” (Havighurst,
1961: 12).
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Although gerontologists in 1961 had neither an overarching paradigm nor
agreed-upon measurements, Havighurst believed that merging elements of Activity
and Disengagement theories could explain processes of aging:
Undoubtedly there is a disengaging force operating on and within people as
they pass 70 and 80. But they will still retain the personality-life style
characteristics of their middle years; those who were happy and satisfied by
being active and productive then will continue to be happy and satisfied if they
can maintain a considerable part of their activity and productiveness; and those
who were happy and satisfied by being relatively passive and dependent in their
middle years will be happy and satisfied if they can become even more
disengaged in their later years (ibid.)
Havighurst showed how to effect integrative theory-building in gerontology.
Definitions of “successful aging” required a life course perspective to explain diverse
patterns of senescing. Attitudes and activities in later years vary; perspectives and
values change over time. Still, advocates of Disengagement theory, he predicted,
would reject measurement scales for Activity theory, and vice versa.
At 61 Robert J. Havighurst was a respected idea-broker (Achenbaum & Albert,
1995: 158-161). He chaired the University of Chicago’s Committee on Human
Development (CHD), after teaching physics and chemistry. In the 1930s he was at the
Rockefeller Foundation and then moved to the Macy Foundation to work with Lawrence
Frank. At Chicago, with colleagues in psychology, anthropology, sociology, and
education, he made CHD a premier center for research and training in gerontology.
Havighurst’s own policy-relevant studies dealt with the personality development of
Native American children. After World War II, Havighurst studied seniors’ activities and
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resilience; he published Personal Adjustment in Old Age with Ruth Shonle Cavan
(1949), Older People with Ruth Albrecht (1949), and The Meaning of Work and
Retirement with E. A. Friedmann (1954). A grant from the Carnegie Corporation
supported CHD faculty and students in the field, a decade-long inquiry in Kansas City
into middle age and aging. Disengagement and Activity theorists gathered data they
interpreted radically differently.
Theoretical disagreements between the Disengagement and Activity teams have
been ably analyzed (Hochschild, 1975; Thornstam, 1989; Achenbaum & Bengtson,
1994; Lynott & Lynott, 1996). Elaine Cumming and William Henry in Growing Old: The
Process of Disengagement said that (1) they had developed “an inductive theory of
aging to fit [their] data” and (2)postulated that “aging is an inevitable, mutual
withdrawal or disengagement, resulting in decreased interaction between the aging
person and others in the social system he belongs to” (Cumming & Henry, 1961: 227,
14). Disengagement Theory had merits. Some people did withdraw from everyday
activities. Cumming and Henry (1961: 227) shared Shock’s opinion that “there is
nothing so practical as a good theory.” Growing Old’s modus operandi resembled
homeostatic maneuvers, moving from concept to data and then back again. This [is]
an important book,” Talcott Parsons proclaimed in his Foreword, “probably the most
serious attempt to put forward a general theoretical interpretation of the social and
psychological nature of the aging process in American society.”
Yet criticisms immediately surfaced about Disengagement Theory. AT CHD
debaters clashed over the operational definitions and measurements grounding
gerontological theorizing. Intellectual jousting usually sharpens critical thinking, but
protagonists held fast to their positions in Unripe Time. Havighurst thought the
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Kansas City data undercut the inexorability of disengagement; his investigators
portrayed the old as active, adjusting sights to fit their stamina. Bernice Neugarten
cautioned against falsely assuming that senescence was homogenous; variations in
gender, race, and class created disparate pathways to aging. To presume that biology
is destiny (to her) was unfounded.
No theorist won the Disengagement- Activity debate. Cumming and Henry
disengaged from gerontology. Havighurst pursued topics in aging while studying
children and youth. Neugarten even-handedly criticized Disengagement Theory in
Middle Age and Aging (1968), while designing paradigms of age she would apply in
Federal policy circles. Disengagement theory was shelved.
The controversy over Growing Old represents an important moment in the
history of theories of age and aging. The debate underscored the necessity to unveil
sound, empirically grounded ideas. But most researchers sought promotions and
raises in home departments over pursuing gerontological reputations. In the vagaries
of Unripe Time, gerontologists could postpone theory-building.
Disengagement Theory’s fate, of course, was not the only disincentive to
theory-building in gerontology from (roughly) the mid-1960s to the 1980s. Bench
scientists proposed scores of explanatory theories about cells, rarely useful to
psychologists or social workers. In their rhetoric gerontologists lauded integrative
puzzle solving, knowing that their efforts were vetted by peers in one of the
Gerontological Society’s divisions. Basic and applied researchers rarely collaborated.
The gerontology community prioritized micro-theories, not grand syntheses, as
building blocks.
“The major new concern then came to be the dialectical relationship
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between fact and explanation,” contended Lynott & Lynott (1996: 754); “our
understanding of the facts of aging not only grows with their accumulation, but with
the transformations in our understanding as well.” Gerontologists honed existing
modes of scientific measurement. “One’s confidence in truth telling and knowledge
building is contingent upon the reliability of evidence under scrutiny,” observed
Bookstein and Achenbaum (1993: 21). “Researchers must believe that the
observations that they and their colleagues generate bear close correspondence to the
reality they purport to describe.”
Critiquing a proliferation of mico-theories and meta-theories in aging
Emergent Theories of Aging,edited by James Birren and Vern Bengtson,
represents another step to promote interest in gerontological theory-building: ”The
present volume is an attempt by researchers to begin to address the data-rich but
theory-poor state of the current research on aging, and to encourage crossdisciplinary interchange that focuses on theory development in aging” (1988: ix).
Birren and Gary Kenyon (1986) prepared a catalog of roughly 225 works dealing with
theories of aging in biology, psychology, sociology, and the humanities. “The wide
scope of the field and, more recently, the high level of its activity and research
productivity have resulted in the creation of islands of knowledge with little
communication between them,” stated Birren & Bengtson (1988: ix). “Current theories
in gerontology are actually microtheories; they do not, in general, embrace larger
perspectives or information from the different domains.” Were the pair right that the
time had come to stop treating theory-building in gerontology as a secondary issue?
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For more than 25 years, interest has grown in gerontological theory-making.
Increasing specialization and the advent of new (hybrid) fields of inquiry, however,
entice researchers in aging to explain more and more about less and less.
Practitioners still tend to use theories from their own or adjoining disciplines, although
the aging community increasingly welcomes its own cross-disciplinary theories and
interdisciplinary models.
Meta-theories of aging have become important, because they embody
consilience--interlocking strands of principles and rules that describe and direct
scientific exploration: “A balanced perspective cannot be acquired by studying
disciplines in pieces; the consilience gives purpose to intellect. It promises that order
not chaos lies beyond the horizon” (Wilson, 1988). Biologist Vincent Cristofalo (1996),
identifying no unified biological theory of aging, reduced models into groupings of
stochastic and developmental-genetic theories. Joannes J.F. Schroots (1996: 743), who
presents a dozen theories of aging, cited Birren’s contention that “there is no major
theory or underlying metaphor that links the various areas of psychology.” Social
scientists created normative models, linkages, and interpretations (Marshall, 1999:
438). Glenn Elder (1998) and Peter Uhlenberg (2004) trumpeted life-course theories,
which prompted Cumulative Advantage/Disadvantage theory (Dannefer, 2000) and an
“Aging and Cumulative Inequality” model (Ferraro, 2009) respectively.
New voices joined the conversation, “identifying themes of meaning that emerge
from their research” (Bengtson et al., 1996: 769). First, experts in the humanities
occasionally played Cassandra. The Need for Theory: Critical Approaches to Social
Gerontology castigated both Emergent Theories of Aging and its successor (Bengtson
& Schaie, 1999): “What emerged was a surprisingly atheoretical handbook on theory.
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Perhaps it is reflective of the historic nature of the field rather than the state of the
art” (Biggs et al, 2003: 3; see also Krause, 2009: 112). Second, as feminist theorists
(Holstein,1999; Ray, 2006) listened to inner voices of aging, Carroll Estes (2001)
dissected gendered dysfunctions in policy and practice. Third, macro-theorists
bridged the gap among theory, observations, and practice: “A well-grounded theory
and a well-theorized applied model hold great promise by generating further research
by giving direction, articulating, and specifying more stringent conditions for the
development of knowledge” (Hendricks et al., 2010: 293).
“We feel that there is a need to reestablish the importance of theory in the
discourse about problems of aging,” announced Vern Bengtson and Warner Schaie in
the first edition of the Handbook of theories of aging. “We feel it is valuable to
emphasize the primacy of explanations in the vastly expanding scientific literature
reporting empirical findings about aging” (Bengtson & Schaie, 1999: ix). Bengtson and
his associate editors (2009: xxii) showcased “attempts to explain” in the 2d edition of
the Handbook of the Theories of Aging. Contributors were encouraged to cross
disciplinary boundaries in explicating processes of aging. “Perhaps no where is this
more visible than in the growth of cross-disciplinary studies concerning the
mechanisms of aging” (Bengtson et al, 2009: xxi).
Despite much progress, cultural lags and structural barriers remained.
Achenbaum & Levin (1989) recounted historical disagreements over definitions of
gerontology (see also, Bass, 2013: 7). Setterston and Dobransky (2000: 369)
underscored disconnects: “As biological phenomena are theorized, they are more
isolated from the psychological and social; as psychological phenomena are theorized,
they more often incorporate the biological; and as social phenomena are theorized,
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they are more often considered in the conjunction with the biological and
psychological” (see also Bengtson et al., 1999: 22-23). Kenneth Ferraro (2008: S4),
reviewing the “greatest hits” cited in the Journal of Gerontology, substantiated Shock’s
observation that “measurement is the basis of all science.” From this perspective,
methods trump ideas.
Theory’s place in major aging texts remains mixed. In the lead chapter of the
Cambridge handbook of age and aging (Johnson et al., 2005) addresses “the problem
of theory in gerontology today” and devotes 20 lines to the topic in the index.
Theorists Dale Dannefer and Chris Philliipson, in contrast, included neither a chapter
nor a reference to “theory” in the index of their Sage Handbook of Social Gerontology
(2010). In Successful Aging John Rowe and Robert Kahn (1998: xii) were “committed to
an interdisciplinary research program…which was actually a coherent set of dozens of
individual research projects,” not bound by any overarching theory.
Connections deepen between theory and research--“When there is not a body of
relevant theory, researchers often do not know where to turn” (Longino, 2005: S172)-yet impediments remain. “Part of gerontology’s strength—its explicit drawing upon a
range of disciplines to understand the aging individual within a societal context—has
also been part of its difficulty in building fundamental theoretical constructs” (Bass,
2006:139). Historical interpretations, which might inform theory-building,
appear
more taxonomic than heuristic. Jon Hendricks (1992), weary of disembodied ideas,
reconstructed the succession of scholarly attempts to study aging. Alluding to
Hendricks’ generational history, Vern Bengtson and associates argued (1997: S76) that
“previous successes (and failures) at explanation provide crucial viewpoints from which
to assess the adequacy of our own empirical efforts” (see also Marshall, 1999: 436).
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Is it worth reconstructing a useable past in gerontological theory building?
Gerontologists demolished Disengagement Theory in Unripe Time. Not even a
giant like Robert Havighurst could salvage parts of Activity Theory in order to sustain
his pioneering theory of successful aging. Ironically, in this highly competitive era for
diminishing resources, it finally might prove timely to update theories from our
collective past. For instance, there are underappreciated corollaries in Cumming and
Henry’s Growing old, which could trigger investigations. Unnoticed are the authors’
explications of gender disparities (1961: ch. 6, 8) and generational tensions (1961: ch.
13). Two other motifs merit elaboration:
First, the study of the Fourth Age. “Very old people often have a surprisingly
high level of social competence and seem able to maintain high spirits,” Cumming and
Henry declared (1961: 201-202). “There may be a group of people who, more than
being merely survivors, have a special biological invulnerability.” Americans usually
focus on the young-old whereas many British scholars are fascinated with the
dimensions of advanced years. While “’old age’ proper becomes tautologically
synonymous with decline,” notes Susan Pickard (2014: 1279-80, 1289), “positive
experiences of embodiment in the ‘fourth age’ point the way to extending the space of
self-actualisation to the whole life span where currently the fear of ageing casts its
long shadow far into youth, as well as encouraging increasing recognition of, and
research focus upon, ambiguous categories such as the good life in old age.”
The second issue deals with Aging and Death. “As a matter of fact, death is
excluded from most of the literature on aging, and it emerges only occasionally as if by
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accident.” Cumming and Henry observed (1961: 18). “This is probably a direct
consequence of the belief in the desirability of an ever-expanding life.” Few theories
yet conjoin gerontology and thanatology. “Whatever the reasons, there is a marked
aversion to addressing end-of-life issues among researchers and writers on aging,”
opines Malcolm Johnson (2009: 659). “While we may describe our field of study as ‘the
study of aging and the life span,’ comparatively little attention is given in the literature
to the far end of life span—death—or psychosocial aspects of the endings of lives.”
Having arrived at Ripe Time, what should gerontologists do? Should they echo
Henry Ford’s claim that “history is bunk?” Or, should theoreticians reconstruct a
useable past? Surely it makes sense to revisit Metchnikoff and Hall who theorized
about the old-old and death, incorporating dependency, debility, and demise into a
web of positivist paradigms. The exercise might induce the current generation of
gerontologists to think out of the box, to integrate gerontological insights with ideas
advanced by disability experts or Queer theorists, whose theoretical literature is richer
than ours. We might look inward to theories of global aging or legal/financial
gerontology. There are bound to be pay-offs: “Time can and should play a more
important role because it can change the ontological description and meaning of a
theoretical construct and of the relationships between constructs” (George & Jones,
2000: 657). To the extent that past masters serve as prognosticators, empirically
tested, historical nuggets might prompt a paradigm shift in how we perceive and
experience aging. Rather than shelve what we deem to be obsolescent theories,
emerging scholars’ critical thinking about our roots just might advance gerontological
theory-building in fruitful and timely ways.
21
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W. Andrew Achenbaum is a professor of history and social work at the University of
Houston and a senior scholar at the Institute for Spirituality and Health In the Texas
Medical Center.