The paradox of aging: A critical review of explanatory hypotheses

The paradox of aging, or the view that, despite physical and cognitive decline, aging is associated with an increase in wellbeing, has become a key concept in literature on aging. Several studies have supplied evidence for the phenomenon of this “positivity effect,” and put forward the idea that advancing age is synonymous with improved emotional regulation. This conception of aging as a period of life during which people seek a positive way of seeing everything has gradually replaced a more privative representation of old age. Such a conception promotes the idea of “successful aging,” which has become a major political and social issue in our Western societies. However, it also raises questions about the cause and nature of changes in emotional information processing with aging, and the conditions under which such changes emerge. This note aims to review two main categories of theoretical models of the positivity effect and emotional regulation. The first category is the product of the psychosocial paradigm, while the second comes from findings on the aging of the brain. By providing a critical analysis of these models, we hope to yield a better understanding of their foundations, assumptions, limitations, and to supply perspectives on a burgeoning field of empirical study.