This study is among the first to induce a younger subjective age. It supports the notion that redirecting older adults' attention to downward social comparison with same-aged peers is a promising strategy to maintain a sense of feeling younger. In addition, our results provide an initial positive answer to the question of whether feeling younger translates into better physical functioning.

Objectives: The present study examines whether subjective age (i.e., how old or young individuals feel) is associated with cognitive functioning and tests potential mediators of this association. Design: Data from the two waves of measurement of the Midlife in the United States survey were used, with assessments conducted at the first wave in 1994e1995 and at the second wave in 2004e2006. Participants: A total of 1,352 men and women aged from 50 to 75 years at baseline (M: 59.32; SD: 6.72). Measurements: Subjective age, body mass index (BMI), physical activity, and the covariates sex, age, education, marital status, and disease burden were assessed at baseline to predict episodic memory and executive function measured 10 years later. Results: Multiple regression analysis revealed that a younger subjective age at baseline was prospectively associated with better episodic memory and executive function. Bootstrap analysis indicated that the association of subjective age with episodic memory and executive function was partially mediated by BMI and frequency of physical activity respectively. Conclusion: Even after accounting for chronological age and other risk factors for cognitive decline, such as disease burden and sedentary lifestyle, the subjective experience of aging predicts cognitive functioning in old age. (Am J Geriatr Psychiatry 2014; 22:1180e1187)

This study is the first to support a vulnerability model, which entails an amplification of neuroticism risk at low education, but a diminishment of neuroticism risk for activity limitations at high education. As a whole, it appears that a focus on either personality or education without taking into account each other provides only a partial account of the predictors of basic daily physical activities in old age.

In life-span samples of more than 2,700 adults, neuroticism was more strongly associated with worse physical functioning among older people compared with younger and middle-aged adults. Longitudinal research is needed to confirm this finding and to identify potential mediators.

This study fills a gap in the existing literature and reveals that openness to experience is related to a youthful subjective age, because older open individuals tend to distance themselves from their age group. Therefore, this study confirms that personality deserves attention as a predictor of subjective age, independently of sociodemographic and health-related variables.