Facts and Fictions about an Aging America by the Macarthur Foundation Research Network on an Aging Society

As the pressure mounts to reduce the public costs of supporting rapidly aging societies, responsibility for supporting elderly people will increasingly fall on their family members. This essay explores the family's capacity to respond to these growing challenges. In particular, we examine how family change and growing inequality pose special problems in developed nations, especially the United States. This essay mentions a series of studies supported by the MacArthur Foundation Research Network on an Aging Society that aim to examine the future of intergenerational exchange. We focus particularly on adults who have dependent and young-adult children and who must also care for elderly parents, a fraction of the population that will grow substantially in the coming twenty-five years.

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Startle potentiation by threat of aversive stimuli and darkness in adolescents: a multi-site study1Research supported by NIMH grants 1 R29 MH50720 and 1 R01 MH53618-01A2 (CG), grant 1 RO1 DA05348 (KRM), and a grant from the MacArthur Foundation Research Network on Psychopathology and Development.1

International Journal of Psychophysiology ◽

10.1016/s0167-8760(99)00002-1 ◽

1999 ◽

Vol 32 (1) ◽

pp. 63-73 ◽

Cited By ~ 50

Author(s):

Christian Grillon ◽

Kathleen R Merikangas ◽

Lisa Dierker ◽

Nancy Snidman ◽

Rosa Isela Arriaga ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Research Network ◽

Aversive Stimuli ◽

Macarthur Foundation ◽

Startle Potentiation

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Successful Aging of Societies

Daedalus ◽

10.1162/daed_a_00325 ◽

2015 ◽

Vol 144 (2) ◽

pp. 5-12 ◽

Cited By ~ 19

Author(s):

John W. Rowe

Keyword(s):

Successful Aging ◽

Skills Training ◽

The United States ◽

Research Network ◽

Policy Makers ◽

Societal Issues ◽

Aging Society ◽

Societal Level ◽

Broad Subject ◽

Capital Development

As America ages, policy-makers' preoccupations with the future costs of Medicare and Social Security grow. But neglected by this focus are critically important and broader societal issues such as intergenerational relations within society and the family, rising inequality and lack of opportunity, productivity in late life (work or volunteering), and human capital development (lifelong education and skills training). Equally important, there is almost no acknowledgment of the substantial benefits and potential of an aging society. The MacArthur Foundation Research Network on an Aging Society offers policy options to address these issues and enhance the transition to a cohesive, productive, secure, and equitable aging society. Such a society will not only function effectively at the societal level but will provide a context that facilitates the capacity of individuals to age successfully. This volume comprises a set of papers, many of which are authored by members of the MacArthur Network, focusing on various aspects of the opportunities and challenges facing the United States while it passes through its current demographic transformation. This essay provides a general overview of the strategy the Network has used to address the various components of this broad subject.

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Promoting resilience, reducing depression in older adults

International Psychogeriatrics ◽

10.1017/s1041610218002119 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 31 (2) ◽

pp. 169-171 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

Charles F. Reynolds

Keyword(s):

Older Adults ◽

Physical Function ◽

Successful Aging ◽

Research Network ◽

Active Engagement ◽

The Face ◽

Macarthur Foundation

The MacArthur Foundation Research Network on Successful Aging defined “successful aging” as active engagement in life, maintenance of high cognitive and physical function, and avoidance of disease (Rowe and Kahn, 1987). Closely aligned with “successful aging” is resilience, that is, the ability to adapt and thrive in the face of adversity.

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Neuroscience and the Criminal Justice System

Annual Review of Criminology ◽

10.1146/annurev-criminol-011518-024433 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 2 (1) ◽

pp. 451-471 ◽

Cited By ~ 7

Author(s):

Henry T. Greely ◽

Nita A. Farahany

Keyword(s):

Criminal Justice ◽

Criminal Justice System ◽

Criminal Behavior ◽

Justice System ◽

Review Article ◽

Research Network ◽

System A ◽

The Subject ◽

The Brain ◽

Macarthur Foundation

The criminal justice system acts directly on bodies, but fundamentally it cares about minds. As neuroscience progresses, it will increasingly be able to probe the objective, physical organ of the brain and reveal secrets from the subjective mind. This is already beginning to affect the criminal justice system, a trend that will only increase. This review article cannot begin even to sketch the full scope of the new field of law and neuroscience. The first workshop on the subject was held in 2003 ( Garland 2004 ), but the field already has its own casebook ( Jones et al. 2014 ) and the MacArthur Foundation Research Network on Law and Neuroscience (2018) shows more than 1,700 publications in the area between 1984 and 2017. Greely (2009) divided the implications of law into five different categories: prediction, mind-reading, responsibility, treatment, and enhancement. This article examines only three points: the current use of neuroscience to understand and explain criminal behavior, the possibilities of relevant neuroscience-based prediction, and plausible future applications of neuroscience to the treatment of criminals. But first, we discuss the human brain and how it works.

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