Promoting Flourishing in Later Life: Integrative Approaches to Meaningful Aging

Dear Colleagues,

Population aging challenges researchers and practitioners to move beyond disease-oriented and deficit-focused models toward approaches that support meaningful, engaged, and flourishing lives in later adulthood. While evidence continues to accumulate for interventions targeting cognitive functioning or symptom reduction, considerably less attention has been devoted to contextual, values-based, and purpose-oriented approaches that promote psychological well-being through personally meaningful action.

This Special Issue seeks to advance research on psychological, social, and community interventions that foster purpose in life, psychological flexibility, social connectedness, flourishing, and person-centered participation among older adults. We particularly welcome studies grounded in contextual behavioral science, positive psychology, person-centered care, self-determination, acceptance- and values-based models, and other integrative frameworks emphasizing meaning and adaptive functioning rather than symptom reduction alone.

Submissions may include observational studies, intervention trials, implementation studies, mixed-methods research, qualitative investigations, systematic reviews, and theoretical contributions. Research conducted in community, healthcare, long-term care, or social-care settings is equally welcome, provided it addresses psychological and social processes that support healthy and meaningful aging.

By bringing together interdisciplinary perspectives from psychology, gerontology, sociology, public health, and social care, this Special Issue aims to stimulate innovative research that contributes to a more holistic understanding of aging well and informs interventions that help older adults live according to what matters most.

Prof. Dr. María Sonsoles Valdivia Salas
Guest Editor

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