Action-related resilience in people with longevity-sociological approach

With increasing longevity, questions about the psychosocial conditions for extraordinary life spans come to the fore. From the field of psychology the concept of resilience is used to describe special capabilities to resist as a personal competence to maintain or regain certain levels of functioning. As such, resilience is seen as a relatively stable personality trait that, however, may forfeit its relevance in old age. The present article, in contrast to the usual phases of life view, adopts a sociological perspective on the entire life span. The rational choice approach is utilized to describe and discuss conditions, foundations, strategies and results of action decisions based on 15 qualitative biographical interviews with centenarians. Resilience in this context is seen as a capacity to act. The results demonstrate that potentials for resilient action persist throughout the entire life span including oldest age but capacities to act are highly context-specific.