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Geropsychology

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Synonyms

Behavioral gerontology; Geropsychology; Psychogerontology; Psychological gerontology; Psychology of aging

Definition

Geropsychology is the area within psychology devoted to the study of aging (APA 2019). Although the focus of geropsychology is on later life, a life-span perspective is fundamental, hence old age is seen as inextricably linked with lifespan development as a whole (Schaie 2016).

Overview

Geropsychology addresses a broad range of domains such as cognitive abilities, personality, social-emotional functioning, as well as the mental health of older adults. Seen against other key disciplines, geropsychology concentrates more on individual behavior than on societal and biological processes as compared to the sociology of aging and biogerontology. Nevertheless, an increasing orientation toward combining biomarkers with traditional measures of geropsychology such as questionnaires has emerged with the goal to better understand the connection between biological and...

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Correspondence to Hans-Werner Wahl .

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© 2019 Springer Nature Switzerland AG

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Wahl, HW., Schnabel, EL. (2019). Geropsychology. In: Gu, D., Dupre, M. (eds) Encyclopedia of Gerontology and Population Aging. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-69892-2_98-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-69892-2_98-1

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-69892-2

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-69892-2

  • eBook Packages: Springer Reference Biomedicine and Life SciencesReference Module Biomedical and Life Sciences

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