Aging Psychology - Essay Example

The concept of age comes in several meanings and explanations. In the following discussions, four major forms of aging are distinguished by using empirical behavioral and hypothetical examples to define them. These forms are chronological, functional, psychological, and social aging. Chronological aging is perhaps the best form of aging that could be described as inevitable for any person who is alive. This is because chronological aging has to do with the accumulation of years, months, weeks, and days. This is often done in chronological order and hence the term chronological aging (Englen, 2009). A typical explicit way of exemplifying chronological aging to distinguish it from other forms of aging is by using birthday celebrations. For every person who lives, there is one day within the year when a birth date falls for the person to celebrate a birthday. This birthday is calculated in chronological order of one-year intervals and hence an example of chronological aging. If it is assumed that each person has a fixed number of years to live, then each birthday would signify the reduction of the person’s total lifespan by one year. This is another chronology that examples that the celebration of birthdays actually signifies a chronological aging process.    

Functional aging on the other hand may present a different scenario of aging, which may even be totally different from chronological aging. This is because, within the concept of chronological aging, the classification of persons as being aged may be different for two people of the same chronological age. This is because, for a typical two 70-year-old man, there is the tendency that the physical and mental roles that each of them may be able to perform would be totally different from each other. Based on these differentiations in functional aging, various countries have instituted different pension schemes and regulations. Pensioning is therefore a typical hypothetical example of functional aging is therefore with the concept of pension. From this perspective, it could be said that people from certain parts of the world have better functional aging than others (Adams, 2011). To those with better functional aging, the legal regulations often provide for late retirement, and vice versa.  

Psychological aging is much related to the mental reasoning that a person holds. It is therefore different from the first two forms of aging discussed in the sense that it applies to people of all ages and is no respecter of numeral or chronological age. Psychological age is also no respecter of one’s functional age. A behavioral example of psychological aging could be given using a business operation process. For most business owners, the measure and attainment of their business success are dependent on their individual psychological aging (Amponsah, 2009). To this end, whiles a person with mature or older psychological age may wish to trade off his business with the notion that the business has hit its climax, another person of the same numerical age may want to venture into new areas with the business all because the latter may have a younger psychological age.

As the name may well suggest, social aging is much dependent on the societal demands on a person. This is a very typical dimension of behavioral emphasis on aging and thus a number of behavioral examples can be given to explain the phenomenon. Generally, as people grow older, there are cultural age expectations that society demands from these people. These cultural age expectations form the root and example of social aging. In some cultures, for instance, people are expected to display a sense of social maturity and social agedness by living a highly moral life and living above reproach. Persons who are able to do these are tagged as socially aged. Social aging could therefore be likened directly to maturity, where there is expected to be some difference in the way a person conducts him or herself (Adams, 2011).