New insights into the relationship between how we feel and our views on
aging

Date:
July 27, 2021
Source:
North Carolina State University
Summary:
A new study finds that the disconnect between how old we feel and
how old we want to be can offer insights into the relationship
between our views on aging and our health.



FULL STORY ==========================================================================
A new study finds that the disconnect between how old we feel and how
old we want to be can offer insights into the relationship between our
views on aging and our health.


========================================================================== Subjective age discordance (SAD) -- the difference between how old you
feel and how old you would like to be -- is a fairly new concept in the psychology of aging. However, the work to this point has used SAD to
look at longitudinal data and how people's views on aging evolve over
months or years.

"We wanted to see whether SAD could help us assess day-to-day changes
in our views on aging, and how that may relate to our physical health
and well-being," says Shevaun Neupert, co-author of the study and a
professor of psychology at North Carolina State University.

SAD is determined by taking how old you feel, subtracting how old you
would like to be and then dividing it by your actual age. The higher
the score, the more you feel older than you want to be.

For this study, researchers enrolled 116 adults aged 60-90 and 107 adults
aged 18-36. Study participants filled out an online survey every day
for eight days.

The survey was designed to assess how old participants felt each day,
their ideal age, their positive and negative mood over the course of
the day, any stresses they experienced, and any physical complaints,
such as backaches or cold symptoms.

"We found that both older adults and younger adults experienced SAD,"
Neupert says. "It was more pronounced in older adults, which makes
sense. However, it fluctuated more from day to day in younger adults,
which was interesting." "We think younger adults are getting pushed and
pulled more," says Jennifer Bellingtier, first author of the paper, and
a researcher at Friedrich Schiller University Jena. "Younger adults are concerned about negative stereotypes associated with aging, but may also
be dealing with negative stereotypes associated with younger generations
and wishing they had some of the privileges and status associated with
being older." Two additional findings stood out.

"On days when the age you feel is closer to your ideal age, people tend to
have a more positive mood," Bellingtier says. "And, on average, people who
have more health complaints also had higher SAD scores." Neither finding
was surprising, but both show the value of the SAD concept as a tool
for understanding people's views on age and aging. It may also offer a
new approach for the way we think about aging and its impacts on health.

"Previous research has found that how old you feel can affect your
physical and mental well-being, and interventions to address that have
focused on trying to make people feel younger," Neupert says.

"That approach is problematic, in that it effectively encourages
ageism," says Bellingtier. "Our findings in this study suggest
that another approach to improving well-being would be to
find ways to reduce this subjective age discordance. In
other words, instead of telling people to feel young, we
could help people by encouraging them to raise their 'ideal' age." ========================================================================== Story Source: Materials provided by
North_Carolina_State_University. Original written by Matt Shipman. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.


==========================================================================


Link to news story: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/07/210727145250.htm

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