Dialogical Integration of Life Experiences and Successful Aging.

This article examines the hypothesis that the dialogical integration of life experiences is related to successful aging. Life story interviews with 93 older Czech adults were sorted into categories characterized by specific patterns of life experience integration: (i) without dialogical processes, (ii) with differentiated I-positions, (iii) with dialogical relationships, (iv) partially integrated, and (v) completely integrated. The results indicated that the categories were ordered, yielding low-level correlations with scales of successful aging in predicted directions. A comparison of the categories revealed that they were related to successful aging in a cumulative way, starting with the most essential indicator (lower scores of rumination) in the participants who had developed at least dialogical relationships, continuing to higher well-being linked with partial integration, and ending with an advanced indicator (optimism toward future) linked with complete integration. These relationships were summarized in a hypothetical model that is open to further examination.

Dialogical and Integrated Self in Late Adulthood: Examining Two Adaptive Ways of Growing Old.

We examined two contradictory views of Erikson's concept of ego integrity: as an outcome of the tension between integrity and despair, or as a dialogical process of balancing positive and negative life experiences. One hundred sixty-seven Czech older adults participated in the study. Dialogically integrated, outcome-integrated, and outcome-despairing participants were selected based on the Ego Integrity Scale and based on methods mapping life-reviewing dialogue. The three subsamples were compared in their psychological adaptation. The results showed that the dialogically integrated participants scored similarly in well-being and meaningfulness of life as outcome-integrated participants and better than outcome-despairing participants. However, the dialogically integrated participants were also prone to experiencing negative emotions. As they were older than the other two subsamples and reported worse physical health, we concluded that the life-reviewing dialogue helps them maintain a sense of meaning in life and a certain level of well-being. Hence, the results support relevance of the dialogical-process view.