Synonyms
Definition
Most gerontological research relies on chronological age to describe, explain, and understand individuals’ health and functioning across adulthood. However, beyond chronological age, a growing attention has been directed in the last decade toward individuals’ subjective experience of aging. Subjective age refers to how old or young an individual feels relative to his/her chronological age. Although the raw values are sometimes used to characterize subjective age (Chopik et al. 2018; Hughes and Lachman 2018), the majority of studies use discrepancy scores (Kotter-Grühn et al. 2015, 2016; Stephan et al. 2015a) computed as the difference between chronological and subjective age or the proportional discrepancy, computed as the difference between actual age and subjective age divided by actual age.
When asking individuals to report the age they feel most of the time, existing studies consistently found that the majority of middle-aged and older adults feel...
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
References
Ayalon L, Palgi Y, Avidor S et al (2016) Accelerated increase and decrease in subjective age as a function of changes in loneliness and objective social indicators over a four-year period: results from the health and retirement study. Aging Ment Health 20:743–751. https://doi.org/10.1080/13607863.2015.1035696
Barrett AE, Gumber C (2018) Feeling Old, Body and soul: the effect of aging Body reminders on age identity. J Gerontol B Psychol Sci Soc Sci. https://doi.org/10.1093/geronb/gby085
Bodner E, Ayalon L, Avidor S et al (2017) Accelerated increase and relative decrease in subjective age and changes in attitudes toward own aging over a 4-year period: results from the Health and Retirement Study. Eur J Ageing 14:17–27. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10433-016-0383-2
Chopik WJ, Bremner RH, Johnson DJ et al (2018) Age differences in age perceptions and developmental transitions. Front Psychol 9:67. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2018.00067
Dutt AJ, Wahl HW (2017) Feeling sad makes us feel older: effects of a sad-mood induction on subjective age. Psychol Aging 32:412–418. https://doi.org/10.1037/pag0000179
Eibach RP, Mock SE, Courtney EA (2010) Having a “senior moment”: induced aging phenomenology, subjective age, and susceptibility to ageist stereotypes. J Exp Soc Psychol 46:643–649. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jesp.2010.03.002
Hughes ML, Lachman ME (2018) Social comparisons of health and cognitive functioning contribute to changes in subjective age. J Gerontol B Psychol Sci Soc Sci 73:816–824. https://doi.org/10.1093/geronb/gbw044
Hughes ML, Geraci L, De Forrest RL (2013) Aging 5 years in 5 minutes: the effect of taking a memory test on older adults’ subjective age. Psychol Sci 24:2481–2488. https://doi.org/10.1177/0956797613494853
Kornadt AE, Hess TM, Voss P et al (2018) Subjective age across the life span: a differentiated, longitudinal approach. J Gerontol B Psychol Sci Soc Sci 73(5):767–777. https://doi.org/10.1093/geronb/gbw072
Kotter-Grühn D, Neupert SD, Stephan Y (2015) Feeling old today? Daily health, stressors, and affect explain day-to-day variability in subjective age. Psychol Health 30:1470–1485. https://doi.org/10.1080/08870446.2015.1061130
Kotter-Grühn D, Kornadt AE, Stephan Y (2016) Looking beyond chronological age: current knowledge and future directions in the study of subjective age. Gerontology 62:86–93. https://doi.org/10.1159/000438671
Kwak S, Kim H, Chey J et al (2018) Feeling how old I am: subjective age is associated with estimated brain age. Front Aging Neurosci 10:168. https://doi.org/10.3389/fnagi.2018.00168
Levy BR, Slade MD, Chang ES et al (2018) Ageism amplifies cost and prevalence of health conditions. Gerontology. https://doi.org/10.1093/geront/gny131
O’Brien EL, Hess TM, Kornadt AE et al (2017) Context influences on the subjective experience of aging: the impact of culture and domains of functioning. Gerontologist 57:127–137
Rippon I, Steptoe A (2015) Feeling old vs being old: associations between self-perceived age and mortality. JAMA Intern Med 175:307–309. https://doi.org/10.1001/jamainternmed.2014.6580
Rippon I, Steptoe A (2018) Is the relationship between subjective age, depressive symptoms and activities of daily living bidirectional? Soc Sci Med 214:41–48. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2018.08.013
Rubin DC, Berntsen D (2006) People over forty feel 20% younger than their age: Subjective age across the lifespan. Psychon Bull Rev 2006(13):776–780. https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03193996
Schafer M, Shippee T (2010) Age identity in context: stress and the subjective side of aging. Soc Psychol Q 73:245–264. https://doi.org/10.1177/0190272510379751
Segel-Karpas D, Palgi Y, Shrira A (2017) The reciprocal relationship between depression and physical morbidity: The role of subjective age. Health Psychol 36:848–851. https://doi.org/10.1037/hea0000542
Seifert A, Wahl HW (2018) Young at heart and online? Subjective age and internet use in two Swiss survey studies. Educ Gerontol 44:139–147
Shrira A, Segel-Karpas D, Bodner E et al (2018) Subjective age and emotion covariation: Findings from two daily experience studies. J Gerontol B Psychol Sci Soc Sci. https://doi.org/10.1093/geronb/gby125
Spuling SM, Miche M, Wurm S et al (2013) Exploring the causal interplay of subjective age and health dimensions in the second half of life. Zeitschrift für Gesundheitspsychologie 21:5–15. https://doi.org/10.1026/0943-8149/a000084
Stephan Y, Demulier V, Terracciano A (2012) Personality, self-rated health, and subjective age in a life-span sample: the moderating role of chronological age. Psychol Aging 27:875–880. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0028301
Stephan Y, Chalabaev A, Kotter-Grühn D et al (2013) “Feeling younger, being stronger”: an experimental study of subjective age and physical functioning among older adults. J Gerontol B Psychol Sci Soc Sci 68:1–7. https://doi.org/10.1093/geronb/gbs037
Stephan Y, Caudroit J, Jaconelli A et al (2014) Subjective age and cognitive functioning: a 10-year prospective study. Am J Geriatr Psychiatry 22(11):1180–1187. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jagp.2013.03.007
Stephan Y, Sutin AR, Terracciano A (2015a) Subjective age and personality development: a 10-year study. J Pers 83:142–154. https://doi.org/10.1111/jopy.12090
Stephan Y, Sutin AR, Terracciano A (2015b) How old do you feel? The role of age discrimination and biological aging in subjective age. PLoS One 10:e0119293. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0119293
Stephan Y, Sutin AR, Terracciano A (2015c) Younger subjective age is associated with lower C-reactive protein among older adults. Brain Behav Immun 43:33–36. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bbi.2014.07.019
Stephan Y, Sutin AR, Caudroit J et al (2016a) Subjective age and changes in memory in older adults. J Gerontol B Psychol Sci Soc Sci 71:675–683. https://doi.org/10.1093/geronb/gbv010
Stephan Y, Sutin AR, Terracciano A (2016b) Feeling older and risk of hospitalization: evidence from three longitudinal cohorts. Health Psychol 35:634–637. https://doi.org/10.1037/hea0000335
Stephan Y, Sutin AR, Bayard S et al (2017a) Subjective age and sleep in middle-aged and older adults. Psychol Health 32:1140–1151. https://doi.org/10.1080/08870446.2017.1324971
Stephan Y, Sutin AR, Luchetti M et al (2017b) Feeling older and the development of cognitive impairment and dementia. J Gerontol B Psychol Sci Soc Sci 72:966–973. https://doi.org/10.1093/geronb/gbw085
Stephan Y, Sutin AR, Terracciano A (2017c) Subjective age and cystatin C among older adults. J Gerontol B Psychol Sci Soc Sci 74:382. https://doi.org/10.1093/geronb/gbx124
Stephan Y, Sutin AR, Kornadt A et al (2018a) Polygenic scores for education, health, and personality as predictors of subjective age among older individuals of European ancestry: evidence from the Health and Retirement Study. Psychol Aging 34:139. https://doi.org/10.1037/pag0000283
Stephan Y, Sutin AR, Kornadt A et al (2018b) Higher IQ in adolescence is related to a younger subjective age in later life: findings from the Wisconsin Longitudinal Study. Intelligence 69:195–199. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.intell.2018.06.006
Stephan Y, Sutin AR, Terracciano A (2018c) Subjective age and mortality in three longitudinal samples. Psychosom Med 80(7):659–664. https://doi.org/10.1097/PSY.0000000000000613
Weiss D, Lang FR (2012) “They” are old but “I” feel younger: age-group dissociation as a self-protective strategy in old age. Psychol Aging 27:153–163. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0024887
Westerhof GJ, Barrett AE (2005) Age identity and subjective well-being: a comparison of the United States and Germany. J Gerontol B Psychol Sci Soc Sci 60:129–136. https://doi.org/10.1093/geronb/60.3.S129
Westerhof GJ, Barrett A, Steverink N (2003) Forever young: a comparison of age identities in the United States and Germany. Res Aging 25:366–383. https://doi.org/10.1177/0164027503025004002
Wienert J, Gellert P, Lippke S (2017) Physical activity across the life-span: does feeling physically younger help you to plan physical activities? J Health Psychol 22(3):324–335. https://doi.org/10.1177/1359105315603469
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Section Editor information
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2019 Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this entry
Cite this entry
Stephan, Y. (2019). Subjective Age. In: Gu, D., Dupre, M. (eds) Encyclopedia of Gerontology and Population Aging. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-69892-2_114-1
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-69892-2_114-1
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-69892-2
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-69892-2
eBook Packages: Springer Reference Biomedicine and Life SciencesReference Module Biomedical and Life Sciences