Handbook of the Psychology of Aging (Handbooks of Aging)

Handbook of the Psychology of Aging, Eighth Edition, tackles the biological and environmental influences on behavior as well as the reciprocal interface between changes in the brain and behavior during the course of the adult life span.

The psychology of aging is important to many features of daily life, from workplace and the family, to public policy matters. It is complex, and new questions are continually raised about how behavior changes with age.

Providing perspectives on the behavioral science of aging for diverse disciplines, the handbook explains how the role of behavior is organized and how it changes over time. Along with parallel advances in research methodology, it explicates in great detail patterns and sub-patterns of behavior over the lifespan, and how they are affected by biological, health, and social interactions.

New topics to the eighth edition include preclinical neuropathology, audition and language comprehension in adult aging, cognitive interventions and neural processes, social interrelations, age differences in the connection of mood and cognition, cross-cultural issues, financial decision-making and capacity, technology, gaming, social networking, and more.

K. Warner Schaie holds an appointment as affiliate professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the University of Washington. He is also the Evan Pugh Professor Emeritus of Human Development and Psychology at the Pennsylvania State University. He received his Ph.D. in clinical and developmental psychology from the University of Washington, an honorary Dr. Phil. from the Friedrich-Schiller University of Jena, Germany, and an honorary Sc.D. degree from West Virginia University. He received the Kleemeier Award for Distinguished Research Contributions and the Distinguished Career Contribution to Gerontology Award from the Gerontological Society of America, the MENSA lifetime career award, and the Distinguished Scientific Contributions award from the American Psychological Association. He is a past president of the APA Division of Adult Development and Aging and currently represents that Division on the APA Council of Representatives. He is author or editor of more than 60 books including the textbook Adult Development and Aging (5th edition, with S.L. Willis) and of all previous editions of the Handbook of the Psychology of Aging (with J.E. Birren or S.L. Willis). He has directed the Seattle Longitudinal Study of cognitive aging since 1956 and is the author of more than 300 journal articles and chapters on the psychology of aging. His current research interest is in the life course of adult intelligence, its antecedents and modifiability, the impact of cognitive behavior in midlife upon the integrity of brain structures in old age, the early detection of risk for dementia, as well as methodological issues in the developmental sciences.

Sherry L. Willis is a research professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the University of Washington. She previously held an appointment as professor of Human Development at the Pennsylvania State University. Her research has focused on age-related cognitive changes in later adulthood. In particular she is known for her work on behavioral interventions to remediate and enhance cognitive performance in community-dwelling normal elderly. She was a principal investigator on the ACTIVE study, a randomized controlled trial to examine the effects of cognitive interventions in the maintenance of everyday functioning in at-risk community-dwelling elderly, funded by NIA. She has been the codirector of the Seattle Longitudinal Study. In addition to her cognitive intervention research, she has conducted programmatic research on changes in everyday problem-solving competence in the elderly and cognitive predictors of competence. She and colleagues have developed several measures of Everyday Problem Solving. She is the co-author of the textbook Adult Development and Aging (with K.W. Schaie, now in its 5th edition). She has edited more than ten volumes on various aspects of adult development and cognition and has authored over a hundred publications in adult development. She has served as President of Division 20, Adult Development and Aging, American Psychological Association. She was a Fulbright Fellow in Sweden. She received a Faculty Scholar Medal for Outstanding Achievement and the Pauline Schmitt Russell Distinguished Research Career Award from the Pennsylvania State University, and the Paul and Margret Baltes award from Division 20 of the American Psychological Association. She currently has funding from NIA for a twenty-year follow-up of the ACTIVE randomized cognitive training trial and funding to archive the Seattle Longitudinal Study.