PSYC 235 Week 5 DB Forum 3 Example

Discussion Board Forum 3: Thread and Two Replies

PSYC 235 Psychology of Adulthood, Discussion Board Forum 3 (thread and two replies)

Thread by [Student Name]

The prompt, the writer's family example and the classmates' posts are composites standing in for the course's own forum; the textbook, Scripture and published studies are real; the requirements follow Liberty's public course guide for PSYC 235.

Thread

My uncle worked for the railroad for 38 years and retired at 62 with a good pension. For the first few months he fished and fixed things around the house. By the end of the year he was sleeping late, snapping at my aunt and saying he felt useless. Watching him made me ask why retirement is a relief for some adults and a crisis for others, even when their finances look similar.

Bjorklund (2015) describes retirement as a process rather than a single day, beginning with planning years before and continuing through a period of adjustment, and notes that health, finances and a sense of choice strongly influence how people fare. People who retire voluntarily and on schedule generally adjust better than those pushed out by layoffs or illness. Research on historical change adds an interesting angle. Henning et al. (2022) compared three groups of German retirees surveyed in 1996, 2002 and 2008, each followed for six years across the transition. On average, positive feelings rose across retirement, though the rise was larger for earlier cohorts. Life satisfaction did not differ across the cohorts, but the link between perceived control and positive affect grew stronger over time. For today's retirees, feeling in charge of one's days seems to matter more than ever.

My uncle had control over his pension but not over his days; nothing had replaced the structure of the railroad. Numbers 8:25-26 offers a striking biblical picture here. The Levites stopped their heavy work at 50, but they continued to minister alongside their brothers, keeping guard and helping (English Standard Version Bible, 2001/2016). Their retirement was a change of role, not the end of service. That concept fits the research: control over one's time, used for purposes that matter, may be what keeps retirement from becoming empty.

My uncle eventually began mentoring young conductors one day a week, and his mood lifted within months. He told me it felt good to be asked for advice again.

Classmates: what has helped retired people you know keep a sense of purpose?

Reply to Hannah

Hannah, you wrote that your grandmother began volunteering at a food pantry after retiring from nursing and seems happier now than when she worked. A large European study suggests her experience is common. Weziak-Bialowolska et al. (2024) followed 19,821 middle-aged and older adults in 15 countries between 2011 and 2020. Volunteering almost every week or more often predicted greater emotional well-being and lower risks of limitations in daily activities and of an Alzheimer's diagnosis six years later. The relationship ran both ways: people with better emotional well-being were also more likely to volunteer, while loneliness and health problems made volunteering harder.

That two-way pattern suggests helping older adults start volunteering early, while they are healthy enough to begin, and making roles flexible enough to continue as health changes. In Acts 20:35 the apostle passes on a saying of Jesus that the giver is more blessed than the one who gets (English Standard Version Bible, 2001/2016), and the research seems to find a measurable form of that blessing. Did your grandmother choose the food pantry because of her nursing background?

Reply to Marcus

Marcus, you suggested that older adults become more religious because they are closer to death. The chapter on the quest for meaning offers a broader view. Bjorklund (2015) describes the search for meaning as a lifelong process in which many adults move toward a deeper, more personal faith over time, not simply out of fear. The chapter also discusses research linking religious participation with better health and well-being in later life, while noting that the reasons for that link include social support and healthy habits as well as belief itself.

The apostle Paul described his own later years with the image of the outer self wasting away while the inner self is renewed day by day (English Standard Version Bible, 2001/2016, 2 Corinthians 4:16). For many older believers, growing faith is less a reaction to death than a continuation of a lifelong relationship with God. Faith may also offer a framework for the losses of later life that few other sources provide. Do you think churches do enough to give older members meaningful roles?

References

Bjorklund, B. R. (2015). The journey of adulthood (8th ed.). Pearson.

English Standard Version Bible. (2016). Crossway. (Original work published 2001)

Henning, G., Segel-Karpas, D., Stenling, A., & Huxhold, O. (2022). Subjective well-being across the retirement transition: Historical differences and the role of perceived control. Psychology and Aging, 37(3), 388-400. https://doi.org/10.1037/pag0000662

Weziak-Bialowolska, D., Skiba, R., & Bialowolski, P. (2024). Longitudinal reciprocal associations between volunteering, health and well-being: Evidence for middle-aged and older adults in Europe. European Journal of Public Health, 34(3), 473-481. https://doi.org/10.1093/eurpub/ckae014