What are the three components of successful aging according to the MacArthur Study of successful aging?

2.2 Definitions of Successful Aging

There is no single definition of successful aging that satisfies everyone. Havighurst (1961) says that successfully aging individuals add life to their years and get considerable satisfaction from life. Ryff (1989) defines successful aging as positive or ideal functioning related to developmental work over the life course. Fisher (1992) interviewed 19 senior center participants ages 62–85 and found that they tended to define successful aging in terms of strategies for coping. Gibson (1995) stated that successful aging “refers to reaching one’s potential and arriving at a level of physical, social, and psychological well-being in old age that is pleasing to both self and others” (p. 279). In the Encyclopedia of Aging, Palmore (1995) writes that a comprehensive definition of successful aging “would combine survival (longevity), health (lack of disability), and life satisfaction (happiness)” (p. 914). Additionally, some gerontologists have discussed similar issues using different terms such as “adjustment” or “adaptation” to aging.

Even in the midst of illness and disabilities, older adults who are aging successfully have a zest for life, are engaged in personal relationships, have concern for the welfare of others, maintain a positive and optimistic view of life, and believe that their later years are a time to leave a legacy for others that is grounded in affirmation. Successful aging does not ignore the physical changes that take place as we age, but it does believe that those who have chosen a positive and optimistic approach to life will bring that approach with them as they age and, as a result, will be able to maintain creative, involving, and interesting activities throughout the life span. Illness and disability for the successfully aging person occur at much later junctures in life and successfully aging individuals can anticipate a longer and more productive life span.

Lifespan Perspectives on Successful Aging

While Successful Aging 2.0 takes a broad, macro approach to studying successful aging (i.e., a societal level view), it is not technically a lifespan perspectives on successful aging. The lifespan perspective, as the name implies, examines the entire life course from childhood to old age. However, as Zacher and Rudolph (2017) recently noted, in practice most empirical research using the lifespan approach focuses on older adults (e.g., age 60 years and older) who are often already outside the workplace. Below we briefly discuss two, broad-based lifespan perspectives that have been applied to, and are particularly relevant to our understanding of successful aging at work. See Zacher and Rudolph (2017), as well as other related chapters in this volume, for a full discussion of other relevant lifespan theories.

Baltes and Baltes (1990); Baltes (1997) selection, optimization, and compensation model is a meta-theoretical perspectives on development across the lifespan that focuses primarily on older individuals (age 60 years and older) and approaches used to maintain basic functions of daily activities. In the model, selection refers to the process individuals use to bring focus and prioritize goals as they age. Whereas, optimization is about maximizing the resources individuals currently possess (e.g., focusing more on crystalized versus fluid intelligence as we age), while compensation is about bringing in additional resources (e.g., using hearing aids to compensate for age-related degradation in auditory capacity). While the model was initially applied to gerontological issues of advanced aging, in the past few decades it has also been applied to a multitude of organizational topics.

For example, in a recent summary of the research applying the selection, optimization, and compensation framework to organizational issues, Moghimi, Zacher, Scheibe, and Von Yperen (2017) found that implementation of the three strategies positively influences a variety of organizational outcomes, including job satisfaction, employee engagement, and job performance. Thus, the model clearly has had a significant influence on how organizational scientists have examined successful aging at work.

Another prominent theory of successful aging is the motivational theory of lifespan development (Heckhausen, 2006). The theory proposes two control mechanisms that can be used to promote successful aging. The first, primary control mechanism involves attempts to control or influence one’s environment. For example, seeking a new job that that has more supportive leaders and coworkers would be a form of primary control whereby individuals take the initiative to change their environment to foster successful aging. The secondary control mechanism involves attempts to adapt to one’s existing environment rather than control or influence it directly. For example, if an individual seeks social support from family or coworkers as an adaptive mechanism to an unsupportive work environment, then the individual is not working to control the environment, but rather adapting to it via relying on secondary control mechanisms. In many instances, it is not possible for the individual directly to influence or control the environment itself, and so, as a result, secondary, adaptive mechanisms are a logical way to facilitate successful aging. As the example above suggests, the motivational theory of lifespan development, like the selection, optimization, and compensation model, has direct applications to successful aging at work as well.

While lifespan theories of successful aging have been popular and well-studied in the gerontological literature, they are not without their critics. Most notably, lifespan theories often fail to integrate context into their explanations of developmental change. Said another way, lifespan theories tend to focus on the processes of intraindividual development (i.e., ontogenesis), while often neglecting extraindividual influences of context on development (i.e., sociogenesis). As a result, person-by-context interactions are typically not examined (Zacher & Rudolph, 2017). Therefore, below we briefly discuss three perspectives on successful aging at work that take a broader systems-based, multiactor (e.g., employees, organizations, families, governments) perspective, thus accounting for broader contextual factors.

Successful aging: a new paradigm

Models of successful aging that are purely objective as well as those that are purely subjective inhibit advancement of the concept (Cosco, Prina, Perales, Stephan, B.C.M et al., 2014). Biomedical models are unrealistic, as studies of the oldest old and centenarians find that nearly all people experience chronic health problems and functional disability in very old age (Andersen-Ranberg, Schroll, & Jeune, 2001; Cho, Martin, & Poon, 2012; von Faber et al., 2001). Given the plasticity and adaptability of human nature, according to Baltes and Baltes (1990), purely subjective conceptualizations of successful aging, with their inherent individual biases, are also insufficient. While Baltes and Baltes (1990) contended that both objective and subjective aspects of successful aging were important, they said, “the objective aspects of medical, psychological, and social functioning and the subjective aspects of life quality and life meaning seem to form a Gordian knot that no one is prepared to untie at the present time” (p. 7). However, if we integrate knowledge gained about successful aging over the past several decades with the roots established by Havighurst (1961) and by Katz et al. (1963), it may be possible to cut through the knot and gain new appreciation for this thorny construct.

One of the main conceptual challenges of the successful aging literature is disentangling aging, marked by the passage of time, from successful aging. Depp and Jeste’s (2006) review found that across a host of studies, the most consistent predictor of successful aging was age. Nearly 90% of the studies included in their review reported a significant relationship between younger age and the probability of aging successfully. Similarly, using the Health and Retirement Study, McLaughlin et al. (2010) found that compared with the young-old, persons aged 75 years and older were 70% less likely to experience successful aging. However, when successful aging was assessed using self-ratings, Jeste et al. (2013) report that older age was associated with higher ratings of successful aging, even after accounting for declining physical and cognitive functioning.

One of the greatest challenges for researchers conceptualizing successful aging as a function of both objective and subjective criteria is determining how best to integrate this information. Strawbridge et al. (2002) were amongst the first to suggest that finding differences between objective and subjective definitions of successful aging “should not be construed as saying that physical health and functioning are not important components of successful aging. But clearly such criteria are not the whole story” (p. 733). They hypothesized that people who were inconsistent in terms of the objective and subjective definitions of successful aging may hold the key to understanding what successful aging is all about and provide the opportunity to examine why some older people with no chronic conditions rate themselves as not aging successfully while others with multiple chronic conditions feel they are aging successfully.

Contending that people can experience chronic disease and functional disability and still feel that they are aging successfully, my colleagues and I developed a two-factor model of successful aging (Pruchno, Wilson-Genderson, & Cartwright, 2010). Consistent with Rowe and Kahn, our model included an objective component which we measured by asking people about diagnosed health conditions, functional abilities, and pain. Although our initial analyses included a measure of cognitive ability, the relatively young age of our sample resulted in little variability on the cognitive measure, and sensitivity analyses revealed a poorer fit of the data to the model when cognitive functioning was included. We did not include a measure of active engagement with life because we conceptualized this as a potential predictor of successful aging rather than part of the construct. Consistent with Havighurst’s work, our model included a subjective component which we assessed by asking people about the extent to which they felt they were aging well, aging successfully, and were satisfied with their life. By including and integrating objective and subjective characteristics, our model acknowledges the importance of both objective and subjective criteria and offers the potential to empirically test the complexities underlying the successful aging construct. Moreover, by sharply focusing on these specific objective and subjective criteria, our model clarifies what successful aging is and what it is not, thereby distinguishing the outcome from its correlates and predictors. Furthermore, our definition helps to distinguish chronological age from successful aging as it presumes that people of all ages have the potential to age successfully.

Empirically testing our model with a large sample of community-dwelling people between the ages of 50 and 74, we found support for conceptualizing successful aging as having two dimensions. Objective successful aging was represented by diagnosed health conditions, functional ability, and pain, with standardized estimates ranging from .70 to .92 while subjective successful aging was represented by aging well, aging successfully, and life rating, with standardized estimates ranging from .66 to .84. The objective and subjective aging dimensions had a significant positive correlation (.56), indicating that although they are related, they are distinct from one another, sharing only 31% of variance. Consistent with the goal of conceptualizing successful aging as distinct from chronological age, our analyses found that age was associated with two of the components of objective success (functional abilities and number of chronic conditions) but age was not associated with subjective success.

By distinguishing the passage of time represented by age from successful aging and defining successful aging as a function of both objective and subjective dimensions, our model not only increases the opportunity to understand what it means to age successfully, but also addresses some of the major critiques of the concept. For example, under our paradigm, people with lifelong disabilities (Molton & Yorkston, 2017), chronic illness (Young et al., 2009), mental illness (Ibrahim, Cohen, & Ramirez, 2010), HIV (Malaspina et al., 2011), and late-onset disabilities (Tesch-Romer & Wahl, 2017) can age successfully. Such a paradigm incorporates what has been learned from asking older people about what successful aging means to them (Cosco et al., 2013) with what is known about the importance of maintaining good physical health and functioning, increasing the relevance and potential impact of the concept (Jopp et al., 2015).

Using our definition of successful aging comprising both objective and subjective components, my colleagues and I used latent profile analysis to define groups of people who age successfully according to both criteria, neither criteria, and one, but not the other criteria. Then, using multinomial logistic regression, we examined the extent to which early influences and contemporary characteristics predicted group membership (Pruchno, Wilson-Genderson, Rose, & Cartwright, 2010). We found that some characteristics, including gender, education, and not having served time in prison (early influences) continued to distinguish the successful from the other three groups when early and contemporary characteristics were included in the model. Yet, other characteristics, such as never marrying, which was significant when only early influences were considered, became nonsignificant when contemporary characteristics were added. A similar approach used by Gu et al. (2017) revealed that objective and subjective successful aging have distinct social correlates and that subtypes developed based on these concepts provide a holistic conceptualization of successful aging. When my colleague and I then examined the predictors of successful aging using a longitudinal design, we found that successful aging is a fluid construct. Over a 4-year period, 18.1% of people aging successfully at baseline (according to both objective and subjective criteria) transitioned out of that status. Characteristics identified early in life (gender, race, education, never marrying, incarceration) as well as those at midlife (currently married, working, smoking, drinking, BMI, exercise, social support) distinguished people who continued to age successfully from those who did not (Pruchno & Wilson-Genderson, 2014).

To be sure, there are other productive ways of combining information about objective and subjective successful aging. Kok, Aartsen, Deeg, and Huisman (2017), for example, quantified successful aging as the number of indicators in which individual respondents showed successful trajectories. Manierre (2018) constructed a successful aging scale by summing together information about whether a person passed five separate “checks.” Cosco and his colleagues (Cosco, Stephan, & Brayne, 2015; Cosco, Stephan, Muniz, & Brayne, 2016) created a continuum-based index known as the Successful Aging Index (SAI) which included seven items: (1) maintenance of interest, (2) absence of loneliness, (3) optimism, (4) self-rated health, (5) cognitive functioning, (6) instrumental ADL, and (7) ADL. The SAI was created using a protocol similar to that used by Searle, Mitnitski, Gahbauer, Gill, and Rockwood (2008) to create a frailty index. Similarly, using confirmatory factor analysis, Kleineidam et al. (2018) compared five methods of assessing objective and subjective successful aging (physical health, cognitive health, disability, well-being, and social engagement) and found that these unique facets can be combined into a single multidimensional construct.

Successful Aging

The concept of successful aging has no consistent definition. Some use it to describe simple survival, whereas others define its parameters through self-perceived quality of life measures: that is, an individual's report of their physical health, psychosocial health, vigor, contentment, and so on (Baltes and Baltes, 1990). Over the past decade, the results of several longitudinal human aging studies have been widely reported, all of which suggest that the role of individual differences in life experience and basic personality are key to understanding how one experiences being elderly (Corr, 2004).

Valliant (2002), in reporting on the Harvard Study of Adult Development, concluded that successful aging in the individual requires resilience and the selection of positive individual lifestyle choices. The MacArthur Foundation Study of Successful Aging (Rowe and Kahn, 1998) reported similar observations and added that individual lifestyle and attitude may even contribute more to successful aging than genes in many cases. Finally, Snowdon (2001), in the well-known Nun's Study, showed that positive behavior and personality in the individual can even overrule the often devastating biology of aging, including the pathology of Alzheimer's. These intriguing reports require further investigation of aged human behavioral variation, both within and between populations. Along with predictable biomarkers of aging (presmyopia, arthritis, increased susceptibility to disease, etc.), there may be a set of identifiable behavioral traits that cross-culturally influence successful human aging.

In a 1945 compendium, the American anthropologist George Murdock (1945) outlined 67 characteristics, or cultural universals, found across all human societies: family, religion, rites of passage, marriage, and so on. Since then, behavioral and psychological universals also have been explored and debated across disciplines, in anthropology, sociology, and psychology, for instance (Norenzayan and Heine, 2005). The search for behavioral universals specific to the aged, however, has a relatively short history.

The long-accepted perception that behavior, activity levels, and social interactions change with increasing age stimulated interest in aging and resulted in the advent of human gerontology as a discipline in the 1940s. Several theories of universal behavioral or psychosocial aging have since been proposed to explain perceived aged behavior. Of these, the following are of particular interest: The first formal theory proposed to explain the process of growing older was the Theory of Social Disengagement proposed by Cumming and Henry (1961). Social disengagement argues that, with increasing age, mutual withdrawal between the individual and society is a natural, inevitable phenomenon that finally culminates in death. Activity Theory of psychosocial aging argues that, if individuals are to age successfully, they must maintain their ongoing roles and activities into their later years (Lemon et al., 1972). Similarly, Continuity Theory states that successful aged adults use strategies that maintain their individual activity and interaction patterns into old age. In this view, successful adults react to the physical restrictions of aging in an adaptive way (Neugarten et al., 1968). Finally, in the Selective Theory of Aging, Carstensen (1987) and Carstensen et al. (2003) describe the process of aging as including a selective pruning of social relationships in later years, and the retention of only the most important relationships. Of these proposed theories, both disengagement and activity theories find no consistent empirical support, but continuity and selectivity theories do enjoy some empirical support.

The most recent theoretical contribution to an understanding of aging as adaptation comes from Ronald Lee (2003). Lee counters the argument that the force of natural selection against aging is too weak to be effective in postreproductive individuals, and reemphasizes the selective importance of behavioral contributions an elder makes to the survival of future generations. Lee argues that this view offers a fresh look at the forces favoring longevity.

Theoretical Background

The question of what successful aging is and how it can be achieved has sparked much research attention and debate (Katz & Calasanti, 2015; Rowe & Kahn, 2015; also see Chapter 9 of this volume). At first sight, the concept of successful aging seems like an oxymoron: Given the many negative changes that accompany aging, especially in the cognitive, physical, and social domains, it seems counterintuitive to equate aging with success (Freund, Nikitin, & Riediger, 2012). Yet, although getting older comes with some negative changes and challenges for nearly everyone, it is clear that some people age more gracefully and happily than others. “Successful agers” appear to be little affected by declining abilities and health, may experience high subjective well-being despite declining health or ensuing disabilities, or even benefit from growing life-experiences, emotional stability, or wisdom. Based on this observation, Rowe and Kahn (2015) noted that it is useful to distinguish successful (above-average) aging from usual (average) aging and unsuccessful (below-average) aging.

How can successful aging best be conceptualized? One approach to successful aging is to define criteria of success. Researchers adopting this outcome-oriented approach have distinguished between criteria that are subjective (e.g., increased levels of hedonic and psychological well-being with age) versus objective (maintenance of high cognitive and physical functioning), general (comprising all functional domains) versus domain-specific (high well-being even in the presence of chronic disease), and static (has the person achieved financial security) versus dynamic (will the person be financially secure now and in the future; see Freund et al., 2012 for a review). Although specific criteria of successful aging are subject to cultural and personal values, at a general level, researchers agree that successful aging entails maximizing gains and minimizing losses as people move through life and into the period of old age (Baltes, 1987).

Another approach to successful aging is to specify processes of aging successfully; in other words, how people can go about maximizing gains and minimizing losses throughout life. The SOC model has been developed in this spirit. It specifies selection, optimization, and compensation as strategies that—if enacted successfully—help people make the most of their talents and opportunities, and to navigate around obstacles arising from blocked opportunities and declining abilities with age (Baltes & Baltes, 1990).

Importantly, the SOC model proposes that these strategies are most beneficial for resource-poor individuals, or, more broadly, in situations in which there is a high degree of mismatch between goals and preferences on one hand, and available resources or means for goal achievement on the other hand. Although people can face a lack or loss of resources at any time in their life, a fundamental characteristic of lifespan development is that the prevalence of losses increases with age, leading to an increasingly unfavorable ratio of gains to losses (Baltes, 1987). Consequently, a key prediction of the SOC model is that SOC strategies are more beneficial for older (i.e., resource-poor) as compared to young (resource-rich) adults.

A second key prediction of the SOC model is that the use of SOC strategies is itself age-related. It is likely that individuals acquire and strengthen their use of SOC strategies as they gain experiences with life-management over time and across various situations. Specifically, through learning and practice in developing, committing to, reshaping, pursuing, and maintaining goals, SOC strategy use will be refined from early to middle adulthood and therefore SOC use should increase from young to middle adulthood (Freund & Baltes, 2002b). However, SOC strategy use is also resource consuming. As elaborated above, resources tend to decline with age, leading to lower SOC use in late adulthood. Moreover, changes in resource availability should precede changes in SOC strategy use (Knecht & Freund, 2017).

It should be noted that adequate testing of these two key predictions, that is, the increasing importance of SOC use with age and the curvilinear age trajectory of SOC use, requires longitudinal research across many years. Unfortunately, such data is not currently available, although some studies regarding SOC strategy use and aging have used longitudinal paradigms across shorter time periods ranging from several months (e.g., Riediger & Freund, 2006) to several years (e.g., Lang, Rieckmann, & Baltes, 2002). Therefore, causality can often not be assumed and results should be interpreted accordingly.

7.01.4.3 How Older Adults Themselves See Successful Aging

Conceptualizations of healthy and successful aging cannot should also consider the voices of older persons, as who better to articulate what constitutes a satisfying and meaningful time in later life than older persons themselves. Lee et al. (2017) surveyed 550 older Americans living in the community or in retirement communities about what they considered key factors of successful aging. Proactive engagement, wellness resources, positive spirit, and valued relationships were the factors reported. In Brazil, Valer et al. (2015) asked a sample of mostly (90%) women between the ages of 62 and 82 years about the meaning of healthy aging. Qualitatively obtained categories of statements reflecting their views on healthy aging included adopting healthy behaviors, having a social network and social support, staying active, being independent, and having positive feelings. Very old (80+ years) Shanghai residents (N = 97) identified in a series of semi-structured qualitative interviews (Chen et al., 2020) self-reliance as the goal of successful aging, supported by four proactive behaviors of physical activity, financial security, community connectedness, and willing acceptance of reality. A similar study conducted on the West Bank in Palestine yielded three themes, including sense of well-being, having good physical health, and preserving good mental health (Halaweh et al., 2018). In cross-cultural studies, Western and non-Western lay perspectives on what constitutes healthy aging tend to be richer and more diverse than the mental, physical, and social well-being categories favored by researchers, although the values and weights on particular factors vary across cultures (Hung et al., 2010). Finally, large population-based studies such as the Baltimore Longitudinal Study demonstrate that many reach their later years without major impairments to their health (Hill, 2011). Other studies have also noted that older individuals tended to rate themselves as aging well and considered themselves unlikely to face decline and loneliness in old age (Bowling, 2006; Bowling and Dieppe, 2005).

Publisher Summary

There are many policy implications for successful aging, which one must mention because they impact successful aging. Clearly, with Americans' increasing lifespan coupled with economic problems and the need to work longer, many older adults face a very different life after 65 than previous generations of older Americans who were financially able to retire early. This chapter highlights some of the issues that appear likely to affect ageing in the future. One worries that, for many older adults, the thrill of not working will be replaced by growing boredom and lethargy, and that anxiety about health issues will dominate their lives. The growing numbers of retirement communities that are detached from the larger community add to this concern. It is also a worry that older adults will be forced to work well beyond a point of burnout because the economic safety nets in savings, pension plans, and social security are quickly disappearing, and that the ability to gradually cycle off full-time work will be replaced by work well beyond the point of being physically and emotionally exhausted.

Quality of life

Ultimately, the goal of successful aging is to maintain an optimal QOL for as long as possible. QOL refers to the overall well-being experienced by an individual. QOL is inherently subjective in the sense that what is deemed important for one person can be very different for another. Yet in the broadest terms QOL is determined by the positive and negative of one's life. Even though the values attached to specific factors that contribute to QOL experience vary across people, several common elements contribute to life satisfaction for most people, including physical and emotional health, the family and social network, employment and other activities perceived as being meaningful and rewarding for the individual, wealth and financial security, environment, and for some people, religious beliefs.

In many ways it is easiest to identify factors that contribute to a reduced QOL. For most people, a minimal level of physical well-being is necessary. An individual who experiences chronic intractable pain will tend to report a poor QOL, regardless of other positive aspects of their life. Even more stark is the image of being incapacitated in a vegetative state being kept alive by artificial means. Almost universally this would be rated as at the extreme end of a very poor QOL, and for many people death would be described as preferable, though this attitude is not shared by some people with strong religious convictions. Though somewhat less severe, loss of functional independence and the need for continuous care in a nursing facility is also viewed by most people as constituting a poor QOL. Many older adults dread this possibility as they reach an advanced age.

QOL is also typically judged to be associated with the quantity, quality, personal meaningfulness, and reward associated with the activities that an individual engages in on a regular basis throughout each week. Increasing physical activity has been shown to have beneficial effects on not only physical health, but also cognitive and emotional health. There is now mounting evidence that ongoing social and cognitive activity is also important in preserving functional capacity and perceived QOL. Conversely, older adults who become excessively sedentary as they age are prone to diminished functional capacity and QOL. Withdrawing from social activity also has the effect of increasing isolation, which has negative consequences in its own right. People who are motivated to learn and to develop new skills also tend to report a better QOL. Humans have an inherent curiosity and need to explore and learn from their environment and their activities.

Ultimately, QOL is highly intertwined with physical, emotional, and cognitive health, functional capacity, and one's ongoing activities late in life. Even though some people are inclined towards spending more time alone than others, generally, social engagement is also associated with better QOL. Physical and cognitive frailties are among the greatest threats to sustaining an optimal QOL.

Internet of things

Another important consideration regarding older adults and successful aging has to do with what is known as the Internet of Things (IoT), which refers to how smart devices and applications work together or are connected through Wi-Fi. In essence, these devices and applications communicate with each other. Some examples include IoT systems to control digital assistants, lights, thermostats, blinds and shades, and cameras installed in doors that show who is at the door, in addition to providing means for individuals to unlock the door remotely (Cotten et al., 2017). A range of sensors and cameras are increasingly being integrated into homes as well as wearable devices, enabling medication reminders, remote monitoring, sensing movement via types of physical activities and movement throughout homes, monitoring sleep, detecting falls, and enabling people to monitor their heart rate, blood pressure, and other health indicators. IoT systems are typically controlled via apps installed on smartphones and/or tablet computers.

When these IoT systems, devices, and applications are used by older adults or their caregivers, it may enable them to make more time-relevant decisions about health and healthcare needs, as well as have increased control over their living and social environments—which should theoretically enhance independent living (Cotten et al., 2017). They can also be used to alert caregivers and social ties when activity levels change. However, privacy and security concerns are still an issue as recent media reports indicate some of these connected devices may gather data that users are not aware they are gathering.

For older adults to successfully age in place, housing must be amenable to accommodations that occur due to changes in health and mobility—including installation of assistive devices such as the ones discussed in this section. Housing quality matters, both in terms of ability for modifications and accommodations but also in terms of the high-speed Internet connections which are needed for many IoT devices. Older adults face significant challenges related to housing, including accessibility, affordability, and maintenance, as well as a lack of existing homes suited for individuals with disabilities (HUD Office of Policy Development & Research, 2017). While housing quality and the capacity to age in place are linked with technology, we should not forget that a digital divide still exists, with many older adults being on the wrong side of the digital divide, and that maintenance of these IoT systems may be a challenge for many older adults who are not skilled in use of technologies (Cotten, 2019).

Cognitive Functioning and Successful Aging

Society and organizations have a need to support active and successful aging among older adults at work, and during and after retirement as well (Kooij, 2015; Zacher, 2015). The aging and work literature describes two recent frameworks for understanding successful aging at work. First, Kooij (2015) defined successful aging as “the maintenance of workers’ health, motivation, and working capacity or work ability now and in the future” (p. 309). Second, Zacher (2015) offered a theoretical framework of successful aging that describes a process that includes intra-individual change over time, person and contextual mediators and moderators, and a variety of work outcomes (e.g., work motivation, job performance, turnover, and occupational health and well-being). The maintenance of cognitive functioning among older adults fits in Zacher’s model of successful aging as a person-level mediator between chronological age and work outcomes, and functions as a personal resource for successful aging. We conceptualize cognitive functioning as a mediator between intra-individual temporal changes and personal and contextual factors (which are also mediators and moderators). Recently some of our team’s research has identified cognitive functioning as an important antecedent of work ability (Fisher, McGonagle, Chaffee, & McCall, 2016). It is necessary to understand the intersection of aging, cognitive functioning, and work in order to advance our understanding of, and mechanisms to achieve, successful aging at work.