Contexts, functions, forms, and processes of collaborative everyday problem solving in older adulthood

Abstract

The present paper reviews the extant literature on collaborative everyday problem solving in older adulthood and explicates the contexts, functions, forms, and processes of collaboration in daily life. In this review, we examine collaboration as it occurs in the daily lives of older adults in addition to the specified intelligence-like tasks more typical of the current literature. Drawing from multiple literatures that have examined collaboration, including sociocultural perspectives within child development, life-span cognition, educational psychology, and social psychology, we illuminate the changing contexts of collaboration across the life span and examine the role of potential collaborators, the multiplicity of forms and functions of collaboration, and the social processes that may facilitate or hinder collaborative performance.