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The paper argues for a theoretical renewal of basic perspectives for ageing research. A longitudinal, ‘historical’ view of the personality is advocated as it is expected to permit a deeper understanding of needs as well as chances for renewal, re-training, prophylactic and rehabilitative measures of and for persons in later life. A psychosocial theory of cumulation of general life conditions and special events, interpreted and reacted to by the subjects, will supposedly enlarge the more static conceptions of ‘social factors of ageing’.Starting from biosociological arguments, as appears necessary in gerontology, historical examples are given for the thesis that instead of an independent age- and age-norm-stratification in society, age norms ought to be viewed as derivates of production, instruction and school-systems, and as a repercussion of the social impacts and consequences of medicine.To supplement this objectivist sociological view of age norms and life phases, the biographic self-interpretations of subjects are considered. Limits of their application as a ‘method’ in social science are discussed and theoretical reasons are given for why and how biographies reflect the past in the light and within the categories of the actual structures and life conditions of the retrospective subjects.The paper finally criticizes a conception of identity which implies an a-historical anthropology and an invariant linear model of development in quasi-prescribed consecutive stages, as often assumed in certain schools of developmental psychology. It pleads for the consideration of different, conflicting and non-synchronized processes in sectional careers (or ‘life-threads’). To study them, a mixture of quantifying and observational methods with subjective-interpretative approaches ‘focussing’ on biographical areas and topics is recommended. |
