Consumer Behavior in Later Life: Multidisciplinary Contributions and Implications for Research George P. Moschis Georgia State University The recent focus on the aging population has created increasing interest in studying older consumers. Numerous theories, models, and frameworks available in various disciplines have been or could be used to study the behav- ior of older adults in the marketplace. This article presents many of these approaches and assesses their current status and relevance to consumer research. Contributions of various approaches to the study of consumer behavior in later life are discussed in the form of propositions and implications for consumer research and marketing prac- tice, methodological issues related to some of these ap- proaches are highlighted, and a research agenda is re- commended to help investigators in future research. The increasing size of the older population not only has captured marketers' attention but also has created interest among consumer researchers. The present state of knowl- edge that characterizes the field of older consumer research consists of large amounts of empirical findings, many of which lack explanation or interpretation. Differences in the consumer behavior of older people are reported, but few explanations of the observed differences are given (Tongren 1988); theories and empirical findings in other disciplines on human behavior have not been adapted to enhance understanding of older adults' consumer behavior or to develop research agendas; and few attempts have been made to interpret theoretically driven consumer research findings in order to help focus research on older adults (e.g., Phillips and Sternthal 1977; Smith and Moschis 1990). The purpose of this article is to present an overview of the various conceptual frameworks used in other fields to study human behavior in later life, interpret existing re- Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science. Volume 22, No. 3, pages 195-204. Copyright 9 1994 by Academy of Marketing Science. search in the context of these frameworks, assess the applicability of these frameworks to marketing and con- sumer behavior, and suggest directions for future research by developing a research agenda. AGING CONCEPTIONS AND PERSPECTIVES Behavior in later life is believed to be the outcome of aging processes and experiences over the life span that differ as a result of dynamic historical and cultural contexts in which individuals are embedded. It is widely accepted that people age as biological beings, psychological beings, social beings, and even as spiritual beings (Moody 1988). Furthermore, these processes occur differently over the life span and it cannot be assumed that people of identical age share the same experiences or move through the same aging processes. Thus conceptions of and explanations for aging and age-related behaviors in later life are multidi- mensional in nature and have come from several disci- plines. The present review focuses on conceptions of and explanations for those aging and age-related behaviors in later life that appear to be most relevant to marketing and consumer behavior. Biological Although there are no good general definitions of bio- logical aging (Cristofalo 1988), this type of aging refers to the changes in human functional capacity resulting from changes in cells and tissues that in turn cause deterioration of the biological system and its subsystems and suscepti- bility to disease and mortality. Biological aging results from both natural changes (e.g., reduced rate of cell repro- duction) and disease. Although the field of biology is rich in theories (Cris- tofalo 1988), we are far from finding answers to the aging