If you believe you are capable of being the wholesome, engaged person that you want to be in old age, you’re much more likely to experience that outcome, a recent Oregon State University study shows.
“How we think about who we’re going to be in old age is very predictive of exactly how we will be,” said Shelbie Turner, a doctoral student in OSU’s College of Public Health and Human Sciences and co-author on the study.
Past studies on aging have discovered that how people believed about themselves at age 50 predicted a vast assortment of future health outcomes up to 40 years later — cardiovascular events, memory, and balance, will to live, hospitalizations; even mortality.
“Previous research has shown that people who have positive views of aging at 50 live 7.5 years longer, on average, than people who don’t,” said Karen Hooker, co-author of the study and the Jo Anne Leonard Petersen Endowed Chair in Gerontology and Family Studies at OSU.
Because self-perceptions of aging are linked to a lot of significant wellness results, Hooker and Turner desired to know what affects these senses. Their research looked specifically at the influence of two factors: self-efficacy connected with potential selves, meaning that a person’s perceived ability to turn into the person they want to be in the long run; and optimism as a general personality trait.
The researchers quantified self-perception of aging with respondents saying how strongly they agreed or disagreed with statements like, “Things keep getting worse as I get older,” “I have as much pep as I had last year,” “As you get older, you’re less useful.” They quantified optimism in a similar manner, with respondents standing their agreement with statements such as “In uncertain times I generally expect the best.”
To quantify self-efficacy, the analysis used a dataset that compiled survey responses from elderly adults where they listed two “hoped-for” future selves and 2 “feared” future selves, and rated how capable they felt of becoming the person they expected to be and preventing becoming the person they feared to be.
Among the “hoped for” selves were things such as “A social person with a strong network of friends” and “A healthy, active person.” Examples of “dreaded” selves were “chronically sick and in pain,” “Being reliant on other people for my day-to-day needs” and “A cranky, mad old lady.”
Results showed that, as predicted, greater optimism was associated with more favorable self-perception of aging. The two “hoped-for ” self-efficacy and “feared” self-efficacy were also significantly related to self-perception of aging, above and beyond optimism as a trait.
A significant element in how individuals see their own aging is internalizing ageist stereotypes, the researchers stated. Examples of these stereotypes include assumptions that elderly adults are poor drivers, or suffer memory problems, or are unable to engage in physical activity anymore.
“Kids as young as 4 years old already have negative stereotypes about old people,” Hooker said. “Then, of course, if you’re lucky enough to live to old age, they eventually apply to you.”
Those stereotypes become reinforced every time an elderly adult forgets something and jokes, “Another senior moment!” However, the researchers say these thought patterns may do real harm.
“People need to realize that some of the negative health consequences in later life might not be biologically driven. The mind and the body are all interwoven,” Hooker said. “If you believe these bad things are going to happen, over time that can erode people’s willingness or maybe even eventually their ability to engage in those health behaviors that are going to keep them as healthy as they can be.”
A means to mitigate these negative stereotypes about aging would be to promote intergenerational relationships, so younger people can see older adults enjoying happy, healthy lives.
“The more you’re around older people, the more you realize that it’s not all bad,” Turner said. “Older people can do some things better than young people do. Increasing opportunities for intergenerational relationships is one way we can make people more optimistic about aging.”
Related Journal Article: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0091415020981883