Psychology of Ageing
Summary
Psychology of ageing examines how advancing years shape mental processes, emotional responses and social behaviour. It spans changes in perception, attention, memory, problem-solving and executive control as well as shifts in personality traits, coping strategies and self-concept. Cognitive ageing involves both decline (slower processing and reduced working‐memory capacity) and preserved or enhanced skills (accumulated knowledge and vocabulary). Emotional ageing often brings greater stability, improved emotion regulation and shifting priorities towards meaningful social goals. Social engagement and resilience modulate trajectories of cognitive and emotional change. Across cultures, positive self-perceptions of ageing and lifestyle factors—regular physical and mental exercise, social participation and stress management—promote healthy psychological ageing. Understanding the interplay of biological, psychological and social influences is essential for interventions to sustain mental well-being, forestall cognitive impairment and enhance quality of life in later decades.
Research from Nature Portfolio
Recent studies have explored stress and cognition in mild cognitive impairment. Longitudinal observations in people with memory-predominant impairment showed that subjective stress measures did not predict further decline, but elevated cortisol levels were linked to poorer baseline cognition and influenced the pace of change over follow-up, suggesting a complex neuroendocrine contribution to cognitive trajectories.
Complementary work has validated non-invasive cortical imaging during memory tasks in healthy elders. Functional near-infrared spectroscopy detected reliable prefrontal and parietal activation during novel face–name encoding and retrieval, confirming this technique’s potential as an accessible screening tool for early memory impairment and tracking of age-related changes in neural recruitment.
Psychology of Ageing publication trend
The graph below shows the total number of articles in psychology of ageing across all publications each year (not limited to Nature Index journals).
Technical terms
Episodic memory: The capacity to recall personal experiences with their temporal and spatial context.
Working memory: A limited‐capacity system for temporary storage and manipulation of information necessary for complex tasks such as reasoning.
Cortisol: A glucocorticoid hormone released by the adrenal glands in response to stress, often measured in saliva or blood as a biomarker of HPA axis activity.
Psychological resilience: The dynamic ability to adapt successfully to stress and adversity, maintaining or regaining well-being.
Neural differentiation: The specificity with which distinct stimuli evoke discrete patterns of neural activity, reductions of which underlie age-related declines in representational quality.
References
- A life course approach to understanding stress exposures and cognitive function among middle-aged and older adults. Social Science & Medicine (2022).
- Stress, depression, and risk of dementia – a cohort study in the total population between 18 and 65 years old in Region Stockholm. Alzheimer's Research & Therapy (2023).
- Resilience, Stress, and Cortisol Predict Cognitive Performance in Older Adults. Healthcare (2023).
- Psychological stress, cognitive decline and the development of dementia in amnestic mild cognitive impairment. Scientific Reports (2020).
- fNIRS can robustly measure brain activity during memory encoding and retrieval in healthy subjects. Scientific Reports (2017).
About these summaries
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