Our population is aging, with one in six Australians aged 65 or older. The median age, where half the population is older and half younger, increased from 35 years in 2000 to 38 years in 2020. Increasingly attention is paid to the perils of age with a focus on the deterioration of body and mind and advice proffered as to how these may be staved off. Where a 30th birthday was celebrated as a marker of good things to come, turning 60 or 70 may be dreaded as ‘the beginning of the end’.
Views of older people have historically varied based on lifespan, social roles, economic conditions and culture. In the Western world, post industrial revolution, the attitude towards older people became increasingly negative with old age framed as a time of decline and dependency and excessive reliance on social welfare. Yet this perspective has little basis in fact as a study by Gilles E. Gignac and Marcin Zajenkowski (2025) attests.
A Cognitive and Personality Trait Perspective
The authors noted that fluid intelligence, which peaks at 20 and declines thereafter, is often seen as the most crucial measure of cognitive capacity yet career achievement tends to peak later between 55 and 60 years. They suggested that while fluid intelligence may decline other capacities may improve. They designed a study to explore this possibility by analyzing ‘age-related trends across nine constructs associated with life success: cognitive abilities, personality traits, emotional intelligence, financial literacy, moral reasoning, resistance to sunk cost bias, cognitive flexibility, cognitive empathy, and need for cognition.’ Using data from published studies they created a Cognitive-Personality Functioning Index (CPFI) and compared a Conventional Model which emphasized intelligence and core personality traits and a Comprehensive model which included a broader range of variables.
What Did They Find?
Both models showed a peak in functioning during later mid-life, 55 to 60 years, but were different at both ends of the age range. The Conventional Model placed older adults well below younger people, however when a broader range of traits were included, the groups came out roughly equal. This accords with the fact that in our current society people attain peak career success and income between 50 and 55 years and political leaders are elected in their mid-50’s to early 60’s and suggests a peak in psychological processes that support effective decision making, leadership and complex role performance. While the capacity for fluid reasoning does decline, explaining why key contributions are made in the field of mathematics in the 20’s and 30’s, high-stakes decision-making in real-world contexts can be expected to typically draw upon a broader set of psychological resources.’ These include crystallized knowledge, moral reasoning, emotional intelligence, and resistance to cognitive biases, all of which increase with age.
What are the Implications for Practitioners?
For those who work with families this is crucial information. It is too easy to overlook the resource that lies with older family members and particularly grandparents. An attitude by practitioners that they may well be the repository of wisdom and problem solutions will support this view in younger people and open a rich resource that may otherwise be overlooked. Polish poet Stanislaw Jerzy Lec summarised it perfectly; ‘youth is the gift of nature, but age is a work of art.’
Gignac, G.E., Zajenkowski, M., Humans peak in midlife: A combined cognitive and personality trait perspective Intelligence 113 (2025) 101961
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