TY - JOUR
T1 - Subjective Age and Attitudes Toward Own Aging Across Two Decades of Historical Time
AU - Wahl, Hans Werner
AU - Drewelies, Johanna
AU - Duezel, Sandra
AU - Lachman, Margie E.
AU - Smith, Jacqui
AU - Eibich, Peter
AU - Steinhagen-Thiessen, Elisabeth
AU - Demuth, Ilja
AU - Lindenberger, Ulman
AU - Wagner, Gert G.
AU - Ram, Nilam
AU - Gerstorf, Denis
N1 - Funding Information:
This article reports data from the Berlin Aging Study (BASE; www.base-berlin.mpg.de) and the Berlin Aging Study II (BASE-II; https://www.base2.mpg.de/en). The BASE was initiated by the late Paul B. Baltes, in collaboration with Hanfried Helmchen, Psychiatry;Elisabeth Steinhagen-Thiessen, Internal Medicine and Geriatrics;and Karl Ulrich Mayer, Sociology. Financial support came from the Max Planck Society;the Free University of Berlin;the German Federal Ministry for Research and Technology (1989?1991, 13 TA 011 &13 TA 011/A);the German Federal Ministry for Family, Senior Citizens, Women, and Youth (1992?1998, 314-1722-102/9 &314-1722-102/9a);and the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences? Research Group on Aging and Societal Development (1994?1999). The BASE-II research project (Co-PIs are Lars Bertram, Ilja Demuth, Denis Gerstorf, Ulman Lindenberger, Graham Pawelec, Elisabeth Steinhagen-Thiessen, and Gert G. Wagner) is supported by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (Bundesministerium f?r Bildung und Forschung [BMBF]) under grant numbers #16SV5536K, #16SV5537, #16SV5538, #16SV5837, #01UW0808;#01GL1716A;and #01GL1716B). Another source of funding is the Max Planck Institute for Human Development, Berlin, Germany. Additional contributions (e.g., equipment, logistics, personnel) are made from each of the other participating sites. Publicly available data from the Midlife in the United States Study (MIDUS) study was used for this research. Since 1995, the MIDUS study has been funded by the following: John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Research Network, National Institute on Aging (P01-AG020166), National institute on Aging (U19-AG051426), awarded to Margie E. Lachman. None of the findings reported in this article have been presented at other occasions before. Data for the Berlin Aging Studies are not publicly available but can be requested from https://www.base2.mpg.de/7549/data-documentation. Data for the MIDUS studies can be retrieved from https://www.icps.umich.edu/web/ICPSR/search/studies?q=midus
Publisher Copyright:
© 2021 American Psychological Association
PY - 2021
Y1 - 2021
N2 - A large body of empirical evidence has accumulated showing that the experience of old age is “younger,” more “agentic,” and “happier” than ever before. However, it is not yet known whether historical improvements in well-being, control beliefs, cognitive functioning, and other outcomes generalize to individuals’ views on their own aging process. To examine historical changes in such views on aging, we compared matched cohorts of older adults within two independent studies that assessed differences across a two-decade interval, the Berlin Aging Studies (BASE; 1990/1993 vs. 2017/2018, each n = 256,Mage = 77) and the Midlife in the United States Study (MIDUS; 1995/1996 vs. 2013/14, each n = 848, Mage = 67). Consistent across four different dimensions of individuals’ subjective views on aging (age felt, age appeared, desired age, and attitudes toward own aging) in the BASE and corroborated with subjective age felt and subjective age desired in the MIDUS, there was no evidence whatsoever that older adults of today have more favorable views on how they age than older adults did two decades ago. Further, heterogeneity in views on aging increased across two decades in the MIDUS but decreased in BASE. Also consistent across studies, associations of views on aging with sociodemographic, health, cognitive, and psychosocial correlates did not change across historical times. We discuss possible reasons for our findings, including the possibility that individual age views may have become increasingly decoupled from societal age views
AB - A large body of empirical evidence has accumulated showing that the experience of old age is “younger,” more “agentic,” and “happier” than ever before. However, it is not yet known whether historical improvements in well-being, control beliefs, cognitive functioning, and other outcomes generalize to individuals’ views on their own aging process. To examine historical changes in such views on aging, we compared matched cohorts of older adults within two independent studies that assessed differences across a two-decade interval, the Berlin Aging Studies (BASE; 1990/1993 vs. 2017/2018, each n = 256,Mage = 77) and the Midlife in the United States Study (MIDUS; 1995/1996 vs. 2013/14, each n = 848, Mage = 67). Consistent across four different dimensions of individuals’ subjective views on aging (age felt, age appeared, desired age, and attitudes toward own aging) in the BASE and corroborated with subjective age felt and subjective age desired in the MIDUS, there was no evidence whatsoever that older adults of today have more favorable views on how they age than older adults did two decades ago. Further, heterogeneity in views on aging increased across two decades in the MIDUS but decreased in BASE. Also consistent across studies, associations of views on aging with sociodemographic, health, cognitive, and psychosocial correlates did not change across historical times. We discuss possible reasons for our findings, including the possibility that individual age views may have become increasingly decoupled from societal age views
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U2 - 10.1037/pag0000649
DO - 10.1037/pag0000649
M3 - Article
C2 - 34694838
AN - SCOPUS:85119271743
JO - Psychology and Aging
JF - Psychology and Aging
SN - 0882-7974
ER -