It was a very strange experiment that the eight older men had embarked on. They lived together for five days in a remote hermitage in New Hampshire. Outside it was 1979, but inside the clocks had been turned back twenty years. The furniture, the newspapers, even the clothes the subjects wore: Everything was from 1959. The black and white television showed the news from that time, Castro moved into Havana and Alaska became the 49th US state. Perry sang Como on the radio or there was a show with Jack Benny.
However, this was not intended as a mere nostalgia trip (this was reserved for a control group). “She are “20 years younger,” experiment leader Ellen Langer had impressed upon the men, all between the ages of seventy and eighty. The fifties became the present. The time travelers met twice a day to discuss – in the present tense! – the “current events” including “recent” personal experiences.
The result was astonishing. Turning the annual clock had the effect of rejuvenation. The men’s handshake was stronger, their posture tighter, their gait more dynamic, their eyesight and hearing improved, their joints more mobile and less painful. They also performed better in memory and intelligence tests. Even to neutral observers, their faces appeared rejuvenated.
According to Ellen Langer’s interpretation, aging is partly a self-fulfilling prophecy, the result of internalized stereotypes of unstoppable decline. Francesco Pagnini, who confirmed Langer’s fountain of youth effect on a larger sample in 2019, attributes this to placebo effects: the expectation of being affected or spared by age inhibits or activates forces in the body.
Even more milestones in psychology
2025 Clara de Paula Couto shows that people grow older when they view their aging positively
2001 Christoph Rott and others study the lives and experiences of centenarians
1933 Dimu Kotsovsky founds the first institute to study aging
1921 Lewis Terman starts a long-term study that later becomes an important basis for aging research
1550 Alvise Cornaro recommends moderation as the basis for a long life
memory
How analytically and logically do you think?
Test now
Your feedback on this article to the editors
Article on the topic
It feels like we are getting younger and younger
Just turned sixty but feels fresh forty. Many people experience themselves as younger than their actual age. How does this affect their well-being?
Boredom confronts us with ourselves
Why it’s worth enduring times of idleness
“Generations are invented.”
Millennial, Gen Z, Boomer: How different are these generations and their values really? The classification is arbitrary; That bothers Hannes Zacher.
