Abstract
Cognitive decline is considered one of the most feared changes that occur as people age (Lustig et al., 2009; Morley, 2004). It affects elders’ quality of life and can limit their participation in social interactions, in the labor market, and their independence in general (Salthouse, 2004). Although a decline in some cognitive aspects is considered a robust phenomenon of aging (Craik & Salthouse, 2011), large variance implies that in some cases cognitive abilities are preserved. In this study we test the possibility that adapting to the changing circumstances of aging and deriving new meaning in this stage of life may be one of the factors predicting preserved cognitive abilities. In two experiments we tested the influence of meaningful aging on cognitive abilities in later life. Meaning in life levels (high, mild, low) were assessed for ninety-five older adults (67–85) who had already retired. Cognitive abilities were assessed by a Flanker task (Erikson & Erikson, 1999) considered to measure inhibition and by a lexical decision task considered to measure vocabulary. Experiment 1 demonstrated that participants who engaged in meaningful activities (either high or mild) showed superior performance compared to the performance of participants reporting low meaning in life. In Experiment 2 we compared the performance of participants who reported high meaning in life to the performance of young adults (20–28). Older adults’ performance was preserved in both cognitive tasks. The findings presented here imply that a meaningful aging may be an important factor in preserving cognitive abilities in later life.
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