Ageing: 2. Maturity in growing older

Later age is often associated with a ‘second childhood’ that is devoid of the energy and vigour characteristic of the initial stages of life. In societies focused on youth, to get older is equivalent to the lack of productivity and redundancy.

Recent research findings however, have suggested that although some aspects of intelligence may develop only until young adulthood, intellectual development continues into later adulthood. Age and maturity may have some positive correlation after all!

Some cognitive skills such as wisdom and expertise in living may not even appear until mid or late adulthood. Especially in a rapidly changing world, adaptability is a learning process that continues over time.

In the attempt to integrate the differing perceptions, theorists hypothesize two patterns of intelligence that appear to show definitive age-related differences – fluid intelligence and crystallized intelligence.

Younger people are better at "fluid intelligence" that relates to abilities such as perceiving relationships among stimulus patterns (such as in putting puzzles together), drawing inferences and comprehending their implications. This component of intelligence represents reasoning, abstraction, and problem solving independent of formal training and socialization within a culture.

"Crystallized intelligence", which older people seem to master, includes such abilities as vocabulary, general information, social judgement, reasoning ability related to formal logic, and mechanical knowledge such as the use and understanding of tools. Crystallized intelligence is associated with the use of principles common to the culture in which one lives, and times of a person’s life course.

This means that rather than to decline per se in intelligence, the pattern of thought tends to change from youth to old age. Younger people train their perceptions outwards - exploring, understanding and interacting with people and objects in the universe around them. Perhaps the burden of experience in older age prompts perceptions to turn inwards, and individuals are more concerned with consolidating their positions in society than with breaking new ground.

The evaluations of the quality of creative work of recognized artists and scientists have found that they generally made fewer high-quality creative contributions as they became older. Creative breakthroughs were more often the work of young adults.

The decline in the creative contributions of older people has been related to two variables – divergent thinking and preference for complexity. The general dip in productivity across the lifespan for people in organized society may also be attributed to the stereotypical influence of these two variables.

"Divergent thinking" refers to originality of thought, and the ability to think outside the box. Individuals comfortable with this mode of thinking, visualize many ideas appropriate to a situation. They work with patterns of elements laterally, changing or transforming them from one state to another. This is especially useful for designer solutions in problem solving.

The "preference for complexity" in abstract thought and complex ideas has been equated with creativity itself. The complexity develops from immersing in a wide-based knowledge platform. Its power is in producing something entirely new and unusual from elements that already exist, simply by using them in a novel way.

The saying “to old to change” is perhaps meant to justify the falling off in the quality of work in middle age. There is safety in the familiar and resistance to stepping outside comfort zones. People tend to prefer emotional stability to transforming concepts and reputations in the later parts of their lifespan. Security and dependable companionships are generally more valued by the older age groups than leaps of faith into the unknown.

The fear of the future correlates negatively with the individual sense of time left in hand to make a mark in the world. The less one can look forward to, the greater the motivation to settle with preserving what has already been achieved by holding onto the past and recycling ‘best practice’. The active power to destroy and recreate thus becomes the prerogative of youth.

Next…motivation