Successful aging through resilience Exploring determinants and opportunities for intervention

The aging process involves many challenges (e.g., cognitive or physical decline, retirement or bereavement). While some individuals adeptly navigate these challenges and consequently flourish in their later years, others grapple with significant difficulties, forging a more arduous path. In this dissertation, I have posited that the key to aging successfully, maintaining good quality of life and mental well-being, largely hinges on one’s capacity for resilience.
While prior research has predominantly focused on specific aspects of resilience, this dissertation adopts a more comprehensive approach to advance our understanding. First, it investigates the complex interplay between factors that either bolster or hinder resilience, and how these (together) predict quality of life and/or mental well-being using network analyses. Understanding these interrelations is crucial for identifying intervention targets to enhance resilience, and in turn successful aging, in older adults. Second, it emphasizes the importance of behavioral adaptability as important aspect of resilience, and shows how this may be supported. Finally, the dissertation examines ageism as a significant societal issue that threatens successful aging. Ageism, which involves stereotyping, prejudice, and discrimination based on age, impacts older adults' self-perceptions and (in turn) quality of life and mental well-being. It can be viewed as a stressor that can diminish resilience, but also requires effective resilience mechanisms to mitigate its impact.
Altogether, the dissertation provides an innovative framework for understanding successful aging and the role of resilience in later life. It highlights the need for multi-faceted interventions and can inform future longitudinal and experimental studies to further explore resilience across diverse populations and contexts.