Evidence Library · Experience Capital, Peakspan & Workspan

A successful-aging model proposes prioritizing goals, strengthening selected capabilities, and compensating for losses

Peer-reviewed researchPeer reviewed

External framework or theory · Supporting · 1990

A successful-aging model proposes prioritizing goals, strengthening selected capabilities, and compensating for losses

Baltes and Baltes propose that people adapt to age-related gains and losses through selection, optimization, and compensation: prioritizing the goals and capabilities that matter most, investing effort and resources to maintain or improve them, and using alternative methods or support when a capability declines.

Research basis

Foundational theoretical chapter. Life-span developmental and successful-aging research.

What it supports

The intellectual lineage for adaptation, compensation, and changing capacity across the life course.

Boundary

This is a theoretical framework for adaptation during aging. It does not demonstrate that these strategies preserve Biological Capacity or improve leadership performance.

BOL relevance

Provides a prior theoretical foundation for how people adapt to changing capacity without validating BOL's Workspan proposition.

Source class

Peer-reviewed research

Role in BOL

Supporting

Population context

Policy or conceptual

Evidence basis

Conceptual or synthesized

adaptationcompensationlife-courseexperience

Source record checked 26 July 2026.

This entry is part of the Bio-Optimized Leadership™ Evidence Library. Each claim states its research basis, what the source supports, what it does not support, and how it relates to the BOL model.