When a psychology professor in Michigan looked through his data on interpersonal conflict a decade ago, he discovered something unexpected. The study, which examined differences across cultures and age groups, seemed to show Americans got wiser as they got older. Richard Nisbett was used to research showing poorer mental skills among elderly adults, but his work found they were better at recognizing multiple perspectives, encouraging compromise, and acknowledging the limits of their own knowledge.
Perhaps, he reasoned, navigating conflict got better with age because it was such a specific, experience-based skill. Working memory, which stores short-term facts like newly learned names, may decline but, as people get older, they inevitably accrue more knowledge from having navigated similar situations throughout their lives. Now 82 years old, Nisbett recognizes the improvement in himself. “I’ve noticed situations to avoid, comments not to make, and the importance of apology,” he said.
His study is part of a growing body of research suggesting that, while some skills like mental processing speed decline with age, other cognitive skills improve for older adults in their 70s and beyond — an observation that has been largely ignored in the raging political debate over the age and mental acuity of the two leading U.S. presidential aspirants.
Although there’s less research on the cognitive improvements associated with aging than the deficits — with academics tending to focus on ailments that can be treated — a series of studies has demonstrated that people show less emotional volatility as they age, with older people feeling fewer extremes of anxiety and distress. Meanwhile, a few different studies have pointed to increased wisdom and calmer decision-making, especially when it comes to decisions that benefit from experience. And further research from Nisbett found older people were better at navigating social conflict.
For example, when Duke researchers tracked the emotions of study participants aged 20 to 80, asking them to record their emotions and temptations several times a day, they found older people registered less volatile responses, and, in turn, were less likely to be tempted to indulge in cravings from cigarettes to social media. Similarly, a study that tracked participants’ emotions five times a day for a week, and then repeated the sampling five and 10 years later, found greater emotional well-being and stability with age.
Research on wisdom, meanwhile, showed that older adults performed better than younger adults on a series of decision-making tasks, specifically when earlier decisions affected potential rewards from later choices, and the participants performed better when they were able to learn from each decision. This was intended to mirror real-life decision-making, wrote the authors: “One cannot apply for various teaching jobs if one did not first decide to attend college. Likewise, one cannot decide where to buy a retirement home if one did not first take steps to ensure a productive career that allowed adequate accumulation of retirement savings.”
The cognitive effects of aging have come under intense scrutiny amid a presidential race where President Joe Biden and Donald Trump are both over 75 years old. Their verbal stumbles and forgetfulness have been widely interpreted by opponents as signs of potential memory loss or confusion. Yet, while memory declines with age for many people, for others it remains relatively constant, said John Rowe, professor of health policy and aging at Columbia University, and plenty of people make small errors in their youth too.
“The problem we have is people conflate certain physical deficiencies that come with advancing age with the capacity to do executive function,” he said. And, while some skills do tend to decline with age, others improve, he added.
Most cognitive abilities don’t rely on experience, but avoiding social conflict is a highly specific skill that can only be accrued by lived experience. And the growth in social wisdom is stronger for any given individual’s personal experience. “I’m sure if you’re in the politics business, you learn all kinds of techniques to avoid social conflict,” said Nisbett, recalling a congressman who once taught him about how the precise timing of a smile can help defuse a difficult relationship. “I don’t have to be wise about everything,” he said. Instead people gain wisdom in their own field of experience.
The accumulation of experience also seems to enhance other forms of reasoning, such as decision-making and the ability to evaluate long-term versus immediate benefits. “The elderly brain has a lot of knowledge,” said Earl Miller, neuroscience professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. As people tend to lose their working memory, they develop other skills that make up for these deficits.
A rich sense of the concept of “justice,” for example, allows older people to act with nuance even if they can’t remember the details of two people’s relationships. Just as deaf people see better and blind people hear better, said Rowe, older people develop strategies to cope with a gradual reduction of memory, sharpening their wisdom to make sense of the context.
Miller said he’s noticed this himself in his 60s. “Part of my work is developing ideas behind how the brain works. I connect the dots much more quickly and effectively now than when I was young,” he said. “I now have more wisdom to see the bigger picture.”
Several other academics said they’d noticed a personal mellowing with age, which is backed up by research. A Stanford study during the pandemic, for example, found older people were happier despite the health risks, adding to findings that older people are less emotionally volatile and anxious. “You tend to mellow out when you’re older, a lot of people do,” said Rowe. “Cooler heads, you don’t sweat the details so much.” This emotional volatility in turn allows for calmer, more rational decision-making.
The positive cognitive aspects of aging are often overlooked, said Rowe, though many of the skills that seem to improve, such as wisdom and emotional regulation, work to make people better leaders and decision-makers.
Rowe, who is 79, co-wrote a book “Successful Aging,” partly because he wanted to emphasize positive stories amid a culture that so often highlighted the negative. In his own longitudinal study of aging, he found that memory loss and other mental challenges are highly variable. Around a quarter of people, termed “super-agers,” exhibit minimal signs of decline later in life.
Research on cognitive loss is an important public health issue, he said, and so it makes sense that there would be more studies focused on deficits. But they can create an overly bleak picture. Emphasizing the negative also contributes to ageism, said Rowe, and a culture where there are few opportunities for older adults.
Much of the research likely also conflates age with cultural changes, said Igor Grossman, a psychology professor at University of Waterloo. Studies that compare how 80-year-olds and 20-year-olds behave are contrasting how those who grew up in the 1960s behave compared to Gen Z, which isn’t necessarily reflective of individuals’ shifts with age. Social stereotypes also affect perceptions, both good and bad — older people could simply be better mediators because they’re expected to be, said Grossman, who led the interpersonal conflict study that Nisbett also worked on. Conversely, Miller said he frequently lost his keys in his 20s, but it’s more likely to be interpreted as cognitive decline now he’s in his 60s.
George Rebok, a life-span developmental psychologist at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, calls the research documenting the declines in cognitive abilities with age “counting the wrinkles.” Many people seem to believe you’ll inevitably get dementia if you live long enough, which is “simply not true,” he said.
And even for those who do face some limitations, there are ways to maintain extremely high levels of ability in selective areas. Rebok pointed to the celebrated pianist Arthur Rubinstein, who continued performing into his 90s and, even if he played fewer pieces than in his youth, was still the star of concerts and met with great acclaim.
Rebok — who turned 74 last Friday — said choosing where to focus mental efforts is part of aging successfully. “I’ve learned better ways of coping with different situations,” he said, including turning to others for expert opinions and working collaboratively rather than trying to solve everything solo. And, with age, comes perspective: “We get so caught up in the here and now, you have to learn to go with the flow.” Emotional balance, he said, that sense of equilibrium that helps both mediation and decision-making, comes with well-earned experience.