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Abstract
The presentation of theories of adult development and aging in terms of their formal aspects can promote precision and clarity in theory construction, facilitate communication between subdisciplines of gerontology, provide a vehicle for the heuristic impact of theories and models upon each other, and alert older persons, practitioners, and researchers that there is a variety of models available for describing social and psychological changes. Theories may be categorized as simple or cumulative sequences, the latter permitting within-person response variation, and as disjunctive or conjunctive sequences, the latter implying that some characteristics are subordinate to others. These categories are illustrated with familiar examples from social, personality, and cognitive development, with particular attention given to the formal aspects of Erikson's theory.