5

Theories and Research

in Explaining and
Understanding Aging
Phenomena
Introduction: Seeking Knowledge
and Understanding
• We often read information (e.g., facts, patterns,
observations about individual and population aging)
in journals, books, government reports, and mass
media.
• Yet “description” represents only one level of
understanding—we also need to know why a fact or
observation exists (e.g., why women are the primary
caregivers for the elderly).
• To better understand, explain, interpret phenomena,
theories (theoretical perspectives) and research methods
are employed.
 The Goals of Scholarly Research
• Theory: a set of ideas that explains of an empirical
finding or observation. Specifically, a theory:
• provides a set of propositions to model how social or
physical world operates;
• helps answers the “why” and “how” questions;
• stimulates the development and accumulation of
knowledge;
• facilitates interventions through development,
implementation, and evaluation of policies, services, and
programs.
Developing Knowledge: Multiplicity
in Perspectives and Theories
• Just as different research methods—quantitative and
qualitative methods—are needed to answer
questions, different theories (theoretical
perspectives) are necessary for increasing our
knowledge.
• Each theory is based on different assumptions and
employs different concepts.
• “Foundational” perspectives (structural
functionalist, interpretive, and conflict perspectives)
provide a general orientation to developing research
questions in social research.
 Foundational Perspectives
• “Foundational” perspectives provide a general
orientation to developing research questions in
social research.
• Structural functionalist perspective
• Interpretive perspective
• Conflict perspective
 The Structural Functionalist
Perspective
• Focuses on relationships between social structures/
institutions (including norms, roles, and
socialization) and the individual.
• Social structure/institutions (like organs in the
human body) function together to regulate
behaviour so society runs smoothly.
• e.g., mandatory retirement removes older individuals
from the social role of “worker.” This is “functional” to
society because it enables younger people to enter labour
force. Older worker adjusts to role of “retiree” and is
rewarded accordingly (with pension income).
 The Social Constructionist/
Interpretive Perspective
• The individual defines—through verbal or symbolic
interaction with others (e.g., verbal language, type
of clothing)—a social situation in terms of what the
situation means to him or her.
• e.g., a university student may present (in terms of
language, mannerisms, clothing) him or her “self”
differently to others during class as opposed to at a job
interview or at home with parents.
• It is a form of micro-level analysis, and does not
consider the larger social system in which the
specific individual is found.
 The Conflict Perspective
• Society is comprised of competing/conflicting
groups, and is dynamic and changing.
• If one group has more power and money, others believe
that they are exploited and so strive to obtain some or all
of the resources from those in control—social interaction
involves negotiation to resolve conflict.
• e.g., conflict between young people (who have yet to gain
power) and middle-aged people (who have most power), or
between older people (who lost their power and authority) and
middle-aged/younger people.
 Contemporary Perspectives on
Aging
• Several theoretical perspectives, based on the
foundational perspectives, have been developed
more recently to explain aging and age-related
processes.
• Social exchange perspective
• Postmodern perspective
• Feminist perspective
• Life-course perspective
 Contemporary Perspectives on
Aging, cont’d
• Other age-specific theories include:
• Activity theory
• Disengagement theory
• Continuity theory
• Age stratification
• Political economy of aging
• Critical gerontology
The Social Exchange Perspective
• Individuals search for social situations in which
valued outcomes are possible and in which their
social, emotional, and psychological needs can be
met.
• Social scientists seek knowledge about past
experiences and current personal needs, values, and
options before they determine the amount of
equality or inequality in a specific social exchange
relationship.
• Unbalanced exchanges may also lead to problems (e.g.,
abuse).
 The Postmodern Perspective
• Postmodernism argues that science and knowledge
are inexorably linked to social control and power.
• Postmodernists employ two basic intellectual
approaches: social construction and deconstruction.
1. Social constructionism: reality is socially constructed
and evolves as we actively interact with others or
record our thoughts and meanings
2. Deconstructionism: language is a social concept that
must be deconstructed for us to understand and explain
the “real” meaning of thoughts and behaviour
 The Feminist Perspective
and Masculinity Theory
• Gender is an organizing principle for studying
social life across the life course, and it can create
inequities that advantage men and disadvantage
women, especially in the later years.
• The goals of feminist research are to understand
social reality through the eyes and experiences of
women, to eliminate gender-based oppression and
inequality, and to improve the lives of women.
• Gender inequities across the life course are socially
constructed, institutionalized, and perpetuated by
dynamic social, economic, and political forces
rather than by individual choices.
 The Life-Course Perspective: A
Dynamic Bridging Approach
• The life-course perspective provides an analytical
framework for understanding the interplay between
individual lives and changing social structures, and
between personal biography and societal history.
• Our life course is composed of multiple,
interdependent trajectories relating to education,
work, family, and leisure. What happens along one
trajectory often has an effect on other trajectories.
 Activity (Substitution) Theory
• Individual adaptation in later life involved
continuing an active life.
• Continued social interaction would maintain the
self-concept and, hence, a sense of well-being or
life satisfaction.
• Two basic hypotheses stem from this theory:
1. High activity and maintenance of roles is positively
related to a favourable self-concept
2. A favourable self-concept is positively related to life
satisfaction—that is, experiencing adjustment,
successful aging, well-being, and high morale
 Disengagement Theory
• Only through a process of work-role withdrawal by
older people can young people enter the labour force.
• Thus, for the mutual benefit of individuals and
society, aging should involve a voluntary process by
which older people disengage from society and
society disengages from the individual.
• The process of disengagement results in less
interaction between an individual and others in
society and is assumed to be a universal process.
• Critics argue that the process was not universal, voluntary,
or satisfying and that not everyone disengages from their
previously established role set.
 Continuity Theory
• As people age, they strive to maintain continuity in
their lifestyle.
• People adapt more easily to aging if they maintain a
lifestyle similar to that developed in the early and middle
years.
• In reality, aging involves both continuity and
change.
Age Stratification: The Aging and
Society Paradigm
• Society is segregated by age into:
1. Childhood and adolescence for education
2. Young and middle adulthood for work
3. The later years for retirement and leisure
• Through a process of role allocation or age grading,
individuals gain access to social roles on the basis
of chronological, legal, or social age.
• Through a process of role allocation or age grading,
individuals gain access to social roles on the basis
of chronological, legal, or social age.
 The Political Economy of Aging
• Politics and economics, not demography, determine
how old age is constructed and valued in a society.
• The onset of dependency and diminished socio-
economic status and self-esteem in the later years
are an outcome not of biological deterioration but of
public policies, economic trends, and changing
social structures.
 Critical Gerontology
• Critical gerontology is “a collection of questions,
problems and analyses that have been excluded by
established (mainstream) gerontologists.” (Baars et
al.)
• Critical gerontology consists of two paths:
1. The political economy of aging
2. A more humanistic path based on the deconstruction of
meanings in communication
• Critical gerontology has generated knowledge of
what it means to grow old within specific class,
gender, racial, and ethnic boundaries, as well as how
to empower older people to improve their lives.
 Intersectionality Theory
• Privilege and disadvantage needs to be examined at
the intersections of major systems of inequality
embedded in society along age, gender, sexuality,
social class, race, and ethnicity lines.
 The Link between Theory and
Research
• In addition to theories/perspectives, research is
needed to discover, describe, and interpret facts,
behaviour, and patterns we observe in the social
world.
• Research is needed to both develop new theories
and test present ones.
• Research helps to:
• refute or support hypotheses or theories;
• initiate revision of existing theories or perspectives;
• construct new theories or perspectives.
 The Selection of
Research Methods
• After a research question is framed using a
theoretical perspective, a method is chosen to
answer the question.
• Generally speaking, there are two research methods

1. qualitative—based on open-ended interviews to

interpret the meaning of what people say, do, or think;

2. quantitative—based on surveys or analyses of existing

data to reach conclusions statistically.
 The Selection of
Research Methods, cont’d
• Combination of both research methods—multi-
method or mixed-methods—can also be used to
draw upon synergies of various types of information
to obtain more complete picture.
• e.g., qualitative methods for understanding aging
phenomenon at the individual level and quantitative
methods for understanding at the societal level.
 The Selection of
Research Methods, cont’d
• Common qualitative and quantitative research
methods used to study aging include:
• Secondary analysis
• Historical and literary methods
• Narrative gerontology
• Survey research
• Participant observation
• Evaluation and intervention research
• Participatory action research
• Cross-national research
 Issues in Quantitative Research
Designs
• A major concern when conducting quantitative-
based aging research is discerning whether findings
are due to age effects (most often, age effects are the
intended goal of research), cohort effects, or period
effects.
• Age effects are differences attributed to biological,
psychological, and social aging processes of the
individual.
• Cohort effects are socio-economic and cultural
experiences shared by all individuals born around the
same time.
• Period effects are the historical and societal events that
affect all individuals in the population, regardless or age
 Issues in Quantitative Research
Designs, cont’d
• Cross-sectional research, such as survey research,
involves recording observations of individuals at
different ages at one point in time and reporting the
results for each age group.
• For example, the results of a cross-sectional study on the
relationship between age and obesity, as shown in Table
5.1.
• While these results suggest obesity levels rise with age, we
cannot conclude that the differences are due to growing old—
that is, to an aging effect. They do not allow us to disentangle
age, cohort, or period effects.
 Issues in Quantitative Research
Designs, cont’d
• Longitudinal research involves collecting (e.g., with
a survey) data over time, including samples of
different people (a trend design) or the same people
at different points in time (a panel design).
• A panel longitudinal design provides more accurate
explanations of the aging process because the same
individuals are studied over time, and the information
can be used to identify and explain patterns associated
with aging—they allow us to disentangle age and cohort
effects.
 Issues in Quantitative Research
Designs, cont’d
• Cohort analysis was developed in response to the
limitations of cross-sectional and panel longitudinal
designs for studying aging processes across time.
• Cohort analysis uses a number of sequential cross-
sectional data sets with the same variables (e.g., health
survey data for 1995, 2000, 2005, 2010, and 2015) to
help identify age changes, cohort differences, and period
effects.
 Issues in Quantitative Research
Designs, cont’d
• Another concern when doing quantitative-based
aging research is representation of the sample data.
• Some groups are difficult to sample, such as those who
are frail or those living in long-term care, yet they
constitute an important and growing segment of the older
population.
• Using a “proxy” (e.g., a caregiver or family member) on behalf
of the older subject can help to improve representation and data
quality.
 Issues in Qualitative
Research Designs
• Qualitative studies tend to be based on non-random
(e.g., “convenient”) samples, and thus are less
generalizable to the larger population than
quantitative studies.
• Qualitative researchers must also avoid having their
preconceptions interfere with gathering and
interpreting data.
 Summary
• Theories/perspectives help explain and interpret
data and observations about aging processes.
• The “foundational” perspectives of structural
functionalism, interpretism, and conflictism,
underlie many of the contemporary perspectives on
social aging.
• Two primary methods of data collection are
qualitative and quantitative research methods.
 Summary, cont’d
• No single theoretical perspective or methodological
approach dominates aging research—some theories
(and research methods) are used primarily to study
micro-level (individual) aging questions; others are
used for macro-level questions (issues at the level of
society or the population).