Do you feel younger than your chronological age? You are not alone. Research has shown that most middle-aged and older adults feel younger than they actually are, and this phenomenon has been labeled subjective age bias. Interestingly, new research provides evidence that this effect is increasing over time. Individuals from more recent birth cohorts tend to exhibit a greater subjective age bias compared to those from earlier cohorts.
The findings have been published in Psychological Science.
Feeling younger has been associated with various positive outcomes such as better physical and cognitive health, higher well-being, and lower mortality risks. Therefore, promoting a younger subjective age may contribute to healthy aging and a better quality of life.
“Subjective age is a popular topic in aging research. We know that most middle-aged and older adults feel younger than they chronologically are. We also know that feeling younger comes with various benefits, such as better health, greater well-being, and even greater longevity,” said study author Markus Wettstein of Humboldt University Berlin.
“But little is known so far regarding historical trends in subjective age. Given that we live longer than the generations before us, might this result in younger subjective ages nowadays than in earlier-born cohorts of adults?” Also, there is medical and technological progress, there is some evidence that psychosocial factors, e.g. well-being, has improved across birth cohorts, and that some (not all!) aspects of health have improved as well, which could further contribute to a cohort effect in subjective age. We used the term ‘subjective rejuvenation effect,’ which means that later-born cohorts feel younger than earlier-born cohorts.”
The researchers aimed to investigate whether there have been changes in subjective age over historical time and whether later-born cohorts maintain a younger subjective age for a longer period. They used data from the German Ageing Survey, which is a nationwide study of individuals in their second half of life. The survey has been conducted since 1996, and participants were reassessed at multiple time points.
The study sample included 14,928 individuals who provided valid scores on subjective age and other variables between 1996 and 2020. Subjective age was assessed using the question “How old do you feel?” Participants’ responses were age-standardized to calculate a proportional-discrepancy score, indicating the difference between their subjective age and chronological age as a percentage.
Participants felt, on average, 11.5% younger than their actual age. Over the course of the study, there was a significant reduction in the subjective-age discrepancy score, indicating that individuals felt relatively less young by about 3% every 10 years. The findings suggest that individuals tend to feel younger than their actual age, but this feeling decreases over time.
The researchers found a historical trend towards younger subjective ages and less increase in subjective age over time. The year of birth had a significant effect on subjective age. Later-born participants felt younger by an additional 2% with each birth decade born later, and their subjective age remained more stable over time. This trend was observed across all age groups, including very old age, which was contrary to the initial expectations of the researchers.
“We indeed found that later-born cohorts feel younger than earlier-born cohorts,” Wettstein told PsyPost. “This effect did not vary by chronological age, so middle-aged adults feel younger nowadays than the cohorts before them, and so do old and very old adults. Moreover, the ‘subjective aging rate,’ that is the extent to which the subjective age of an individual increases over time, was slower in later-born cohorts compared to earlier-born cohorts.”
“We were surprised that the cohort trend was not different for different ages,” Wettstein explained. “Prior findings suggest that very old adults might not reveal the positive cohort trends (e.g., in health or well-being or cognitive functioning) that are observed for middle-aged or ‘young-old’ individuals. Maybe the last phase of life does not substantially benefit from improved medical treatments etc., because plasticity in advanced old age is limited. However, our findings suggest that historical trends toward younger subjective ages are not limited to middle-aged and young-old individuals.”
Various correlates such as gender, education, loneliness, and health were included in the models to assess their influence on subjective age. In another surprising finding, the researchers observed that the inclusion of these variables did not change the pattern of results. This suggests that these specific factors, although associated with subjective age, did not play a significant role in driving the observed historical changes.
“We thought that the ‘subjective rejuvenation’ effect which we observed might be due to cohort trends in health, education, and psychosocial functioning,” Wettstein told PsyPost. “However, when controlling for these factors, the cohort trend toward younger subjective age was still observable. So there might be additional explanations for this cohort effect.”
The study has some limitations, such as potential cultural specificity and limited generalizability beyond Germany. The study also had fewer longitudinal observations for later-born cohorts, which could affect the estimates of trajectories and statistical power. The study authors said that more research is needed to examine subjective rejuvenation in very old age and include underrepresented subgroups.
“Regarding implications, it seems to be good news that people feel younger nowadays than people did 10 or 20 years ago, because I mentioned the beneficial effects of a younger felt age on health and well-being,” Wettstein said. “Yet, we need to know more about ‘dosage-response’ effects; feeling extremely younger than one is might not always be adaptive, it might be ‘immature’ in certain contexts.”
“Also, the fact that most middle-aged/older individuals feel younger than they are might have to do with how we think about aging and what age stereotypes we have,” Wettstein continued. “The so-called age-group dissociation effect postulates that individuals feel younger in order to psychologically distance themselves from the group of older adults. Negative age stereotypes are associated with health risks, they are harmful in many ways. So it is an important task for science, society, and media to correct age stereotypes that are overly negative, exaggerated and one-sided.”
The study, “Younger Than Ever? Subjective Age Is Becoming Younger and Remains More Stable in Middle-Age and Older Adults Today“, was authored by Markus Wettstein, Hans-Werner Wahl, Johanna Drewelies, Susanne Wurm, Oliver Huxhold, Nilam Ram, and Denis Gerstorf.
