Should you write off the over 50s?
An article in The Times today caught my eye with the headline “Your get up and go will have gone by 54”. I’ll be 54 next month so should I get ready to vegetate in a quiet corner?
One of the joys of being a university student again is the ease with which I can get hold of research journals online. The research The Times referred to has been published in “New Ideas in Psychology” and, through the University of Hull’s library portal, it only took me a few seconds to find so I can share some more of the detail with you.
This new Norwegian research looks at the links between “passion”, “grit” and “mindset” with particular reference to how people learn and the drive to grow expertise. Over 900 people rated their response to prompts like “I work hard enough to fulfil my goals” and “I finish whatever I begin”.
This week our MSc group has been learning about the scientific method — asking questions, forming hypotheses, gathering and testing data then responding to what it reveals to you. We’ve also been looking at regression analysis and the Norwegian research is full of lots of lovely numbers to play with so I’ve had fun delving into the detail.
I’m glad to tell you that the research didn’t write off people 54 and over. It found that they have different links between their drive and passions compared to younger people, but that’s not the same as saying they’re incapable of striving to learn new things. You could hypothesise that people 54 and over might be more established in life, more confident and perhaps more content so I don’t suppose we’re too stunned by these findings.
What is surprising is that under 6% (yes, really that few!) of the people taking part in the research were over 54. They were recruited from being part of sports clubs or visiting certain public buildings so would the outcome have been different if the sample had included a much larger number of people such as business leaders, head teachers, medical professionals…?
I heard last week of a 70 year old local cyclist who pulled up at traffic lights and got chatting with another guy on two wheels who revealed he was 88 and still regularly cycling over 50 miles. Henry Ford said “anyone who keeps learning stays young”; I’ve heard from many people who, like me, have changed career direction in their 50s (and older). We have the grit, passion and mindset to strive for new knowledge. I don’t know about you, but I now have much more zest for life than in my 20s; I have much more energy than in my 30s when I was balancing career and young children and, if it’s not immodest to say so, I’m wiser now than I was in my 40s.
So if this is decline, bring it on!
