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Stress, even extremely traumatic stress, may pose both risks and benefits. Although combat can have lifelong negative consequences, the perception of positive benefits from military experience can mitigate the negative effects of combat on mental health. However, little research has examined the impact of trauma earlier in life on the development of positive adaptation, such as wisdom, later in life. The authors examined whether combat exposure and the perception of benefits from military experience, assessed in 1990, were associated with greater wisdom in later life, assessed in 2001 in 615 men from the Normative Aging Study men (mean age 74 years, SD = 6.8 years). A quadrilinear relationship between combat exposure and wisdom was found. Moderate levels of combat were associated with higher levels of wisdom. The perception of benefits and coping predicted wisdom. Thus, how one appraises and copes with problems may be more important in the prediction of positive adaptation than the simple occurrence of stress. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We examined the interplay between three explanatory hypotheses for why older adults appear to rate their problems as less stressful than do younger adults: age-related differences in personality, in types of problems, and in the appraisal process-specifically, the number of primary stress appraisals. A sample of 1,054 men from the Normative Aging Study (mean age = 65.02; range = 45 to 92) were interviewed about a problem in the past week. Personality did not mediate the effect of age on stress ratings. While general hassles and health problems both increased with age, they had opposite influences on stress ratings. Accounting for covariates, older men reported fewer appraisals, and the number of appraisals mediated the association between age and stress ratings. We found no moderating effects of problem type on these processes. Thus, lower stress ratings for everyday problems in later life may result from developmental changes in primary appraisal processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Self-transcendence has been hypothesized to be a critical component of wisdom (Curnow, 1999) and adaptation in later life (Tornstam, 1994). It reflects a decreasing reliance on externals for definition of the self, increasing interiority and spirituality, and a greater sense of connectedness with past and future generations. The Adult Self-Transcendence Inventory was administered to 351 individuals along with the NEO-FFI Personality Scale (McCrae & Costa, 1989). A principal axis factor analysis identified two factors: self-transcendence and alienation. The relationships between self-transcendence and neuroticism, openness to experience, extraversion, and agreeableness were significant, although modest, suggesting that self-transcendence cannot be accounted for in terms of positive personality traits alone. As expected, a multiple regression analysis indicated that self-transcendence was negatively related to neuroticism and positively related to meditation practice. The present study appears to lend support to the construct of self-transcendence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]