Objective: Older adults are an untapped resource for leading sustainability change. This study assessed a pilot study of a Sustainability Ambassadors Training Program for older adults.
Methods: The pilot training program was conducted with a sample of 14 older adults over a single day, with some follow-up activities for participants at home.
The COVID-19 pandemic has brought age bias and the unmet mental health needs of older adults into bold relief. Even before the pandemic, the psychological needs of older adults often went unaddressed, or were poorly addressed by a system that lacks an adequate number of providers and insufficiently integrates geropsychological services across care settings. In the decade ahead, the number of older adults in the United States will continue to grow, with the potential for expanded demand and contracted service options.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFDecades of research have shown that biological and psychosocial aging are not as predetermined as had been thought for a long time. Yet, despite a large and growing evidence base, most individuals still hold negative views of aging that keep them from optimizing their chances for healthy and productive aging. Given this general background, this article has three major objectives: (a) to show that the 3 big misconceptions at the heart of the public's negative views of aging can be refuted based on scientific evidence; (b) to illustrate that changing individuals' views of aging calls for the development of a new narrative on aging, one that incorporates the increasing diversity of the aging population; and (c) to discuss how psychologists can contribute to creating this new narrative on aging.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFDespite several decades of research on more effectively communicating climate change to the general public, there is only limited knowledge about how older adults engage with an issue that will shape and define future generations. We focus on two key factors that may motivate younger and older adults to engage in climate change action, legacy concern and place attachment, and assess whether older adults differ in any appreciable way from the general population in this domain. We randomly exposed participants of different ages to either a Legacy, Place, or control writing induction task before they completed various self-report measures.
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