Experience of Time and Subjective Age When Facing a Limited Lifetime: The Case of Older Adults with Advanced Cancer

Objectives We addressed two questions: (1) Does advanced cancer in later life affect a person’s awareness of time and their subjective age? (2) Are awareness of time and subjective age associated with distress, perceived quality of life, and depression? Methods We assessed patients suffering terminal cancer (OAC, n = 91) and older adults free of any life-threatening disease (OA, n = 89), all subjects being aged 50 years or older. Results Older adults with advanced cancer perceived time more strongly as being a finite resource and felt significantly older than OA controls. Feeling younger was meaningfully related with better quality of life and less distress. In the OA group, feeling younger was also associated to reduced depression. Perceiving time as a finite resource was related to higher quality of life in the OA group. Discussion Major indicators of an older person’s awareness of time and subjective aging differ between those being confronted with advanced cancer versus controls.

Reciprocal Relationships Between Subjective Age and Retirement Intentions

Organizational researchers and practitioners have become increasingly interested in how subjective age—employees’ perceived age—is related to important work and career outcomes. However, the direction of the relationship between employees’ subjective age and retirement intentions remains unclear, thus preventing theoretical advances and effective interventions to potentially delay retirement. We contribute to the literature on work and aging by investigating the relationship between subjective age and retirement intentions longitudinally, using a sample of n = 337 workers who participated in a study with six measurement waves across 15 months. Results of a random intercept cross-lagged panel model show unique between-person and within-person relationships linking subjective age and retirement intentions. As expected, we found a positive relationship between subjective age and retirement intentions at the between-person level of analysis. At the within-person level of analysis, results suggest that retirement intentions positively predicted subjective age, but not vice versa. Overall, these findings contribute to a better understanding of the role of subjective age in the context of work and retirement.

The effect of mortality salience on status consumption among elderly individuals: the moderating role of chronological age and subjective age

PurposeOver the past two decades, a large body of research has examined the effect of the awareness of the inevitability of death on consumption behaviours. However, the literature has shed little light on the effect of mortality salience (MS) on elderly individuals. The present research specifically aims to challenge the effect of MS on status consumption among elderly individuals.Design/methodology/approachTwo experiments were conducted among individuals over 50. The experiments manipulated MS to test its effect on status consumption.FindingsThe results demonstrate that MS positively influences the preference for status products among elderly individuals (experiment 1) and that this effect is less pronounced as elderly individuals age (experiment 2). Subjective age bias, defined as the potential gap between chronological age and subjective age, negatively moderates this effect (experiment 2).Practical implicationsLuxury marketers need to pay attention to generational cohorts rather than other demographic variables in the segmentation of their market. Moreover, subjective age may be a better segmentation variable for marketers than objective variables such as chronological age.Originality/valueThis research provides insights that support a better understanding of status consumption among elderly individuals and the role of subjective ageing in this process.

Daily Activity Engagement Predicts More Positive Affect Especially on Days When a Person Feels Young

Engagement in a wide array of mental, social, and physical leisure activities confers several health benefits. Indeed, theories of successful aging argue that an active lifestyle serves as an important criterion for maintaining high levels of psychological, functional, and physical well-being in old age. Findings from parallel studies also show that people who hold positive (self-)views of aging exhibit higher and maintained levels of well-being over time. Yet, whether views of aging enhances the link between activity engagement and well-being - and whether they do so on a daily basis – remains unknown. This study therefore sought to extend prior literature by examining the relationship between activity engagement, subjective age, and affective ratings within-person over several days. Old adults (N = 115; Age: Range = 60 – 90, M = 64.65, SD = 4.86) in the Mindfulness and Anticipatory Coping Every Day (MACED) study completed an 8-day daily diary. Participants reported on their positive and negative affect, the age they subjectively felt compared to their actual age, and the number and types of leisure activities in which they engaged. Results from multilevel analyses indicate that people felt more positive on days when they also engaged in more activities (total across mental, social, physical types) than usual. Moreover, the effect of activity engagement was most pronounced on days when people felt younger than usual. No effects were found for negative affect. Preliminary findings suggest that people benefit psychologically from daily leisure activities and a positive self-view of aging.

Characteristics of Financial Exploitation in a Sample of Israeli Older Adults

Financial exploitation (FE) negatively affects wellbeing in older adulthood. However, characteristics of FE and its health correlates remain poorly understood. In this study, 138 Israeli older adults answered questions regarding FE history, and completed physical and mental health questionnaires. Of 138 participants, 23 reported a history of FE. FE participants were older (M birth year = 1950.35; sd = 9.65) than non-FE participants (M birth year = 1953.79; sd = 6.06; p = 0.028) and reported lower household income (p=0.001). Groups did not differ in education level or sex breakdown. The FE group reported older subjective age (p = 0.022), worse subjective cognition (p = 0.007), more depressive symptoms (p=0.002), and marginally higher anxiety symptoms (p = 0.099) than the non-FE group. Groups did not differ in reported levels of social support or number of medical conditions. When covarying for age, differences between groups in subjective cognition and depressive symptoms remained significant (ps ≤0.022), while subjective age differences became marginal (p = 0.07). The FE group responded to follow-up questions regarding FE experiences. Reported perpetrators included companies/businesses (most commonly reported, 30%), strangers, friends/neighbors, service providers, and family. Eleven reported losing 100 NIS to 10,000 NIS, and 10 reported losing 10,001 to over 100,000 NIS. Additionally, six FE participants reported that the FE is ongoing, and two reported additional FE experiences. Findings suggest that FE is related to mental and physical health of older adults. Findings also provide preliminary information regarding characteristics of FE in a sample of Israeli older adults.

Differences in subjective age by filial caregiving status among US adults in mid and later life

Subjective age is an important indicator of age identity and is associated with both psychological and physical well-being. Previous studies have revealed that older adults who feel younger than their chronological age show better health status, better life satisfaction, and less risk of mortality. Considerable evidence shows that stress contributes to feeling older than one’s chronological age. Given the fact that taking a caregiving role involves stress, it is expected that caregiving might accelerate subjective aging. This study examined the association between the stressor of caregiving and subjective age in mid and later life. Data were drawn from the Health and Retirement Study in 2014 and 2016. Participants aged 50 years and over (n=1,087) were identified according to adult-child caregiver status at across the two waves: those who provided care consecutively (long-term caregivers), those who became caregivers in 2016 (new caregivers), those who were no longer providing care in 2016 (recent caregivers), or those who did not report providing care in both 2014 and 2016 (non-caregivers). Linear regression analysis showed that new caregivers reported feeling older than their chronological age compared to non-caregivers. However, long-term or recent caregivers did not show significant differences in subjective age compared to non-caregivers. The finding is consistent with the stress process theory and adaptation hypothesis. Although the onset of caregiving stress may accelerate subjective aging, this deleterious effect may decrease over time due to family caregivers’ adaptability. Future research will examine the role of support, resilience and mastery in this pathway.

Longitudinal Relations Between Views on Aging and Perceived Stress: Evidence for Mutual Associations

We investigated the reciprocal longitudinal relation between perceived stress and three established domains of views on aging (VoA): (1) subjective age; (2) attitude toward own aging [ATOA]; and (3) aging-related cognitions including social loss, physical decline, and continuous growth. We also examined the potentially moderating role of chronological age. Data of the German Ageing Survey, comprising two measurement occasions (2014 and 2017) and a sample of 4,588 individuals aged between 40 and 95 years, were analyzed. Controlling for socio-demographic and health-related indicators, cross-lagged models indicated mutual longitudinal relations between VoA and stress. Whether the pathway from stress to VoA or the opposite pathway was stronger varied depending on the VoA considered. With increasing age, most VoA domains were less strongly associated with subsequent perceived stress. Our findings suggest that less favorable VoA predict higher perceived subsequent stress, but they are also preceded and predicted by higher levels of perceived stress.

Views of Aging During the Corona Pandemic

In the Covid-19 pandemic, media stories and government reports have emphasized the heightened risk of being “old” and placed a spotlight on the way we think and talk about older adults and aging. In this symposium we investigate how the pandemic and the public discourse about older adults has shaped views of aging in different countries. Bellingtier et al. report on German children’s views of older adults before and during the pandemic. Children placed greater distance between themselves and older adults both before and after the pandemic, suggesting early ageism in children that predates the pandemic. Levy et al. provide experimental evidence that media stereotypes about aging and Covid-19 influence the mental health of older American adults, both in positive and negative. Schwartz and Ayalon found that greater perceptions of age-based discrimination in the healthcare system by Israeli adults 50+ were significantly related to greater Covid-19 worries. Greater worry can motivate older adults to take precautions, but be detrimental if it becomes too high. In line with this finding, Tingvold et al. found in a study with older adults from Luxembourg that more Covid-19 worry predicted feeling older four months later, but only for those in worse health. Finally, Terracciano examined longitudinal change in subjective age and found that American adults reported feeling younger after the emergence of Covid-19 than before, suggesting that perceptions of aging partly reflect a coping process to counter the negativity in the media.