Pacific Standard May-June 2013 Cover

How the Trailer Park Could Save Us All

trailer-park-end-of-world-lead

Residents call life at Pismo Dunes Senior Park "Pismodise." Park manager Louise Payne calls it "a holding tank for the great beyond." Louise has short hair and blunt bleached bangs that give her the air of a preteen skateboarder, but at 72 she's often found rolling by the park's 333 trailers in her electric golf cart, alternating between her roles as mother hen and whip-cracker. California is a notoriously youthful culture, but eventually the perpetually young get very old. If they're lucky enough to live in Pismodise, which is on the Central Coast, they can exit its palm-lined entrance, cross ... Read More

The Tyranny of Today: Not Who You Were, Nor Who You’ll Be

“Nothing endures but change,” mused Heraclitus, the fifth-century b.c.e. philosopher. (The same sage who, according to Plato, said that you could never step into the same river twice—it’s always a different river, and you’re always a different you.) We learn this lesson, if painfully, sometime in middle school, when the first dog dies, teenage love goes unrequited, or divorce divides the dinner table. The earth shifts, threatens to swallow us up, but soon enough there’s a new beagle, a new Emily, a new normal—Thanksgiving at mom’s house, Christmas at dad’s. Despite ... Read More

Look Out, Kids: Competitiveness Peaks in Middle Age

In our culture, competitiveness is usually associated with youth. Think of sporting contests, music competitions (both of the classical virtuoso and pop diva varieties), or the pressure-packed process of applying to prestigious universities. It now appears watching eager young performers in action may have skewed our view of the competitive urge. Newly published research suggests the instinct to bet on the superiority of one’s skills peaks around age 50. A research team led by University of Oregon psychologist Ulrich Mayr reports this pattern holds true for both men and women, although ... Read More

Musicians Hear Better Into Old Age

Musicians retain the ability to distinguish speech in noisy conditions far longer than non-musicians. That's the key finding of a just-published study by two Canadian researchers, who report playing music seems to delay the decay in an aging brain's central auditory processing system. "This finding suggests that continued practice throughout life may alleviate some of the age-related decline in speech perception often experienced by older adults," Benjamin Rich Zendel and Claude Alain of the Rotman Research Centre and University of Toronto report in the journal Psychology and ... Read More

Scamming Grandma Sadly Common

It began late one evening when Harriet, already in bed, answered a call from someone claiming to be a police officer. The caller said that Harriet’s grandson was in a car accident while traveling in Canada and needed some money to tow and fix the car. “Could you please wire some money to us so we can get him on his way home? “Oh, and please, Grandma,” the alleged officer said, “don’t tell his parents, since they didn’t know he was taking this trip.” By the way, Grandma, what a big checking account you have! Yes, it’s a scam. Sometimes the caller claims to be a lawyer ... Read More

Obesity — Not Aging — Balloons Health Care Costs

"I guess I don't so much mind being old, as I mind being fat and old." — Peter Gabriel Our rising life expectancy has been nice for those who like being alive, but it seems a bummer for society as a whole. Even if Social Security doesn’t go bust as baby boomers slowly saunter into the sunset, their massive Medicare costs seem likely to crush the economy. Not surprisingly, further major gains in longevity, which researchers on aging have recently achieved with drugs in animals, is about the last thing deficit-obsessed policymakers want to see happen. Accordingly, less than 0.5 percent of ... Read More

Religious Affiliation and Brain Shrinkage

Aging baby boomers are using a variety of methods to remain mentally sharp, from brain fitness classes to simply staying social. Newly published research suggests another, admittedly unorthodox approach to promoting brain-cell survival: Changing your religious affiliation. A study published in the online journal PLoS ONE found a key part of the brain atrophied more rapidly in Catholics and born-again Protestants than it did in mainline Protestants. This accelerated shrinkage was also found in people who reported a life-changing religious experience, as well as those with no ... Read More

Listening for the Key to Reverse Aging

"I feel weak today. I felt much stronger yesterday — like Benjamin Button in reverse," remarked a breathless Michael Scott, managerial dimwit from NBC's The Office. This is one of a few recent nods the show has made to academy-award nominated film, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button; the latest, seen this season, shows Dwight and Angela discussing provisions of a baby contract, with one clause outlining what to do if their child is born an old man. What prompts Button's water-cooler popularity, and much to the chagrin of its tagline writer ("Life isn't measure in minutes, but in ... Read More

Married Couples Don’t Grow More Alike Over Time

In spite of the cliché that opposites attract, considerable research suggests couples — at least those who make long-term commitments — tend to have similar personalities. But are they attracted to one another because of their shared attitudes and beliefs, or do they grow to resemble one another over time? Research just published in the journal Personality and Individual Differences points to the former conclusion. It suggests spousal similarity is more a matter of initial choice than gradual convergence — with the apparent exception of one personality trait. A team led by ... Read More

Observe the Child, See the Adult

At what age do our personalities form, and how stable do they remain for the rest of our lives? When you observe a child, can you really see the man or woman they will grow into? Such questions have longed been pondered by theorists and explored by artists, including the creators of the compelling Up series of documentaries. But hard data on the subject is, understandably, scarce. That makes a new study, just published in the journal Social Psychological and Personality Science, unusually interesting to students of human behavior. It compares teachers’ assessments of Hawaiian ... Read More