Ecology Of Aging Research Paper

1. Development Of The Field

Since aging has long been regarded as a process mostly determined by a biological program inherent in the organism, the explicit consideration of environmental variables which affect the course and outcome of human aging was an important step in the historical development of gerontology. This paradigm shift was greatly influenced by:

(a) The growing role of the social science perspective within gerontology which began in the late forties and set the stage for the emerging field of social gerontology.

(b) The prominent role of learning theories in psychology in the fifties and sixties which underscored the importance of the environment in all stages of human development.

(c) The Chicago school of urban sociology and its human ecology perspective (Burgess, McKenzie, and Park) in the 1920s and 1930s, the writings of Lewin in the thirties and forties, as well as the emergence of ecological psychology and of the social ecology view of human development (Barker, Bronfenbrenner, and Moos) in the sixties and seventies which, among other things, placed particular emphasis on the resource character of the physical and spatial environment and hence provided another set of roots for this discipline (Lawton 1982, Wahl 1992).

The conceptual and empirical productivity within the field grew steadily during the sixties and seventies. Gerontological research has been devoted to housing alternatives for the aged, relocation processes and outcomes, and aging in institutions ever since. By the eighties and nineties, the issue of dementia led to new research challenges based on the assumption that environmental design becomes particularly crucial when the capacity for person-based adaptations in later life is exhausted.

2. Conceptual And Methodological Basics And Role Within Gerontology

2.1 Conceptual And Methodological Basics

The ecology of aging is particularly concerned with the description, explanation, and modification optimization of the relationship between the aging person and his her environment. Furthermore, by drawing from Lewin’s basic insight that behavior must be seen as a function of the person and his her environment, Lawton (1982) has suggested that research on the ecology of aging cannot proceed without acknowledging the ‘ecological equation,’ that is, the interaction between the aging individual and the environment as it relates to a variety of outcomes such as well-being, social behavior, or leisure activities. The term transaction has been suggested to underscore the notion that person and environment are hard to separate from each other and that the view of an ongoing process of mutual interchange may best reflect the everyday world (Altman and Rogoff 1987).

With these concepts in mind, research on the ecology of aging (as well as ecological research in general) was from the beginning concerned with examining the everyday life of individuals in their own day-to-day world. Hence, empirical methods, such as real-life observations in natural settings, the retrospective assessment of day-to-day behaviors through the use of diaries, or the reconstruction of internal representations of the environment have been preferred. Methods used to describe the environment, such as checklists for housing interiors or multidimensional evaluations of institutional settings, have also played an important role (Gitlin 1998).

Although ecological research has placed emphasis upon the physical environment, it is widely acknowledged that in reality, the physical and social environment are deeply interwoven. Some work on the ecology of aging has even put the major emphasis on the question of how social environments shape the elderly’s behavior in specific socio-physical settings such as nursing homes (Baltes 1996).

2.2 Role Of The Ecology Of Aging Within Gerontology

Research on the ecology of aging strives to understand the environment-related tasks that typically confront the aging individual. These tasks include preserving autonomy in everyday life despite physical and mental impairments through the utilization of environmental resources within (including home modifications, see Gitlin 1998) and outside the home, initiating the relocation process if desired or necessary, and adapting to new living environments (such as a nursing home or other planned housing) after relocation. These classic research themes illustrate the fact that an interdisciplinary approach—covering disciplines such as psychology, sociology, architecture, geography, urban planning, and design—is essential for the understanding of the ecology of aging. Because the major research themes are so closely tied to the everyday world of the aging individual, empirical research on the ecology of aging also has strong practical implications and thus contributes significantly to the improvement of life quality in the later years.

3. Theoretical Approaches And Empirical Key Results

3.1 Overview Of Theoretical Approaches

The ecology-of-aging paradigm encompasses a whole set of theoretical perspectives, all of which seek to understand how the socio-physical environment influences adaptational processes and outcomes in the everyday life of the elderly.

In the Press–Competence Model, the lowered competence of the older person, in conjunction with high ‘environmental press,’ is assumed to negatively impact on behavior in everyday life as is also expressed in the so-called Environmental Docility Hypothesis (Lawton 1982, Lawton and Nahemow 1973). For example, empirical research has revealed that the social interaction patterns of elders, particularly in planned housing, greatly depend on physical distances; long distances were found to effectively undermine social relations. The Person–Environment Fit Model has underscored the role of motivation within transactional processes (Carp 1987, Kahana 1982); basic as well as higher-order needs have been considered in their relation to the potential and limits of the environment. Empirical evidence supports the notion that a misfit between the resident’s needs and the ability of the environment to fulfil these needs contributes to the explanation of lower life satisfaction. The Person–Environment Stress Model (Schooler 1982) argues that certain environmental conditions—such as lack of privacy or control in institutional environments—should be regarded as a potential threat for the aging process. Subsequently, intervention studies aimed to enhance the control of elders produced positive behavioral, emotional, and health outcomes (see Schulz and Heckhausen 1999, for a summary and theoretical integration of this research). Finally, the Social Learning Model underscores the role of operant learning processes in circumscribed socio-physical settings, most notably care interactions in institutional settings (Baltes 1996). The empirical application of this model has produced profound insights into the effect of the social environment on dependent behavior in old age by identifying a robust interaction pattern characterized as the Dependence–Support Script. According to this script, the social environment of elders tends to strongly reinforce their dependent behaviors, while independent acts are mostly ignored.

3.2 Critique

Theoretical approaches within the ecology of aging have been critiqued for a number of reasons. For example, it has been argued that some of these models relegate a far too passive role to the elderly individual, who seems to be nothing more than a pawn of environmental forces. Lawton (1989) has addressed this critique by introducing the Environmental Proactivity Hypothesis which states that elders are also active and goal-directed shapers of their environments. It has also been argued that research on the ecology of aging has—in both theory and practice—been overly concerned with safety, orientation, and support (Parmelee and Lawton 1990). Meanwhile, the environment’s potential for stimulating behavior and emotion, for creating strong cognitive–emotional bonds (place attachment; Rubinstein and Parmelee 1992) and thereby preserving one’s personal continuity, has been neglected.

4. Future Considerations

Future research on the ecology of aging is faced with at least three challenges: \(a) Theoretical challenges. Most of the theoretical approaches in this field were developed in the sixties and seventies. One particularly fruitful theoretical avenue may be to strengthen the links between ecological theories and promising conceptual approaches within psychological gerontology. One prototypical example is provided by psychological control theories (see Schulz and Heckhausen 1999) which focus on person–environment relations and their alterations across the human life span.

(b) Methodological challenges. Although the use of naturalistic methods such as observations and in i o data-collection strategies have proven themselves to be indispensable tools in research on the ecology of aging—as well as for gerontology in general—the methods used are rarely comparable. One of the most important methodological challenges is creating a single set of instruments to describe the physical and spatial environment of older people (Gitlin 1998).

(c) Application and societal challenges. Due to the rapidly growing number of older adults and particularly ‘old-old’ adults beyond the age of 85, one of the main challenges of today’s and tomorrow’s societies is providing care for the demented elderly. Research on the ecology of aging must be strongly committed to planning and evaluating supportive environments for these people. In addition, the growing impact of information and communication technology such as the Internet, the use of high-tech solutions in housing and in public community life, as well as the rapidly growing role of technology in geriatric care have given rise to a whole range of new environmental characteristics. Research on the ecology of aging will thus continue to encounter new challenges in the future.

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