Journals of Gerontology Series B: Psychological Sciences and Social Sciences, Vol 54, Issue 3 P139-P145, Copyright © 1999 by The Gerontological Society of America

ARTICLES

Aging, culture and control: setting a new research agenda

R Schulz and J Heckhausen
University of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA.

In the context of reviewing the current status of research on aging and control, we put forth five propositions: (1) Striving for primary control is a human universal invariant across historical time and diverse cultural settings; (2) the expression of control striving is in part shaped by culture; (3) the field needs to move away from the study of perceived control and its correlates to the study of motivational aspects of control; (4) control should be studied in a life span context and the focus should be on key transitions that redefine opportunities for control striving; and (5) inasmuch as primary control striving is such a central element of human functioning, research on its demise at the end of life should receive high priority.

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