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UA Communication professor Jake Harwood says those who have "healthy" relationships with their grandparents tend to have better perceptions about aging.

By La Monica Everett-Haynes, University Communications
January 4, 2008

University of Arizona students spend a great deal of time talking to their parents, but it is the relationships students have with their grandparents that has become the focus of one professor's research.

The most recent campus climate survey showed that more than 85 percent of students who responded talked to their parents daily or at least once a week.

The survey doesn't discuss how much UA students talk to their grandparents, but UA Communication professor Jake Harwood has spent years studying that very topic.

What he's found is that those who have "healthy" relationships with their grandparents tend to have better perceptions about aging.

By healthy, he means regular and open communication about personal issues, as well as a mutual feeling of respect. When a relationship is formed in this way, grandchildren “are better off,” Harwood said.

He also pointed to research that has come out of the public health discipline that suggests people with positive views about aging tend to live longer than those who don't.

“It’s sort of a self fulfilling prophecy. If you think it’s going to be all bad it, it’s probably going to be,” he said.

Harwood, who has studied communication and interactions between seniors and others since his undergraduate years, hopes his research will promote more positive views about aging.

“This affects all of us,” Harwood added. “We’re all getting old.”

Several contemporary issues makes this research relevant, said Chris Segrin, head of the communication department.

"People live longer and it is becoming more common that grandparents will provide the primary care for their grandchildren," said Segrin, a communication professor as well as an adjunct associate professor of family and consumer resources.

The life expectancy rate, which has been rising steadily in the United States for decades, is now at 78 – up from 69 in 1960, U.S. Census Bureau data shows.

Because of this, and other reasons, it is time to change anti-ageist views, Harwood.

In fact, his recently published book, “Understanding Communication and Aging: Developing Knowledge and Awareness,” hit bookstands earlier this year and addresses issues related to aging, such as discrimination, how aging is viewed in varying cultures and family relationships.

But even though those age 55 and older make up about 23 percent of the nation’s population, positive images about older groups tend to be in short supply, especially on television and in popular magazines, he said.

Living longer also means that certain people may have to deal with conditions that generally affect the senior population – particularly those above age 80 – such as Alzheimer’s disease and problems with loss in vision and strength, Harwood said.

That's not to say the relationships he tends to encourage are merely meant to help younger generations figure out ways to cope with impending illness.

“Getting older is not just about getting sick,” he said.

Instead, younger generations who connect well with their grandparents are more likely to understand the full scope of aging, "from the very healthy and active to the disabled and impaired."