Self-reflections of age and aging are predictors for key outcomes such as mortality, but little is known about the nature and potential antecedents of subjective age in very old age. We used cross-sectional data from the Swedish OCTO study (N = 267; B. Johansson & S. H. Zarit, 1995) and found that almost two thirds of the 84- to 90-year-olds reported not feeling old. Multinomial logistic regression analyses indicated that younger age and better physical functioning as well as higher well-being and mastery beliefs were all related to not feeling old. In multivariate analyses, however, mastery beliefs emerged as the most consistent and robust predictor of subjective age. Our findings suggest that adaptive capacities may be preserved into advanced age and highlight the pivotal role of perceived control for successful aging.

Transitive inference underpins many human reasoning competencies. The dominant task (the "Extensive-Training-Paradigm") employs many items and large amounts of training, instilling an ordered series in the reasoner's mind. But findings from an alternative "3-Term-Paradigm" suggest transitivity is not present until 7+ years. Interestingly, a second alternative paradigm (the "Spatial-Task"), using simultaneously-displayed height relationships to form premise-pairs, can uphold the 4 year estimate. However, this paradigm risks cuing children and hence is problematic. We investigated whether a height-task variant might correspond to a more ecologically-valid 3-term task. 222 4-6 year-olds either completed a modified height task, including an increased familiarisation phase, or a computer-animated task about cartoon characters running a race in pairs. Findings confirmed both tasks were functionally identical.Crucially, 4 year-olds were at chance on both; whereas 6 year-olds performed competently. These findings contrast with estimates from all three paradigms considered. A theoretical evaluation of our tasks and procedures against previous ones, leads us to 2 conclusions. First, our estimate slightly amends the 7-year estimate offered by the 3-Term-Paradigm, with the difference explained in terms of its greater relevance to child experiences. Second, our estimate can coexist alongside the 4-year estimate from the Extensive-Training-Paradigm. This is because, applying a recently developed "Dual-Process" conception of reasoning, anticipates that extensive-training benefits a species-general Associative System, whilst the Spatial-Paradigm and 3-Term-Paradigm can potentially index a genuinely-Deductive System which has always been the target of transitive research. Deduction allows us to engage in quite complex problem-solving activities, but may sometimes form part of more routine unconscious or automatic thinking (Deneault & Ricard, 2006;Klaczynski, 2009;Muller, Sokol & Overton, 1999). Perhaps one of the most basic forms of deductive inference-making both in adults and in children is Transitive Reasoning (Bara, Bucciarelli & Lombardo, 2000;Halford, Wilson & Phillips, 1998;Lazareva & Wasserman, 2010). A child is said to possess transitive reasoning when he or she can deduce a latent relationship between two items (say A and C), after being given information about the relationship of each of these items to a third item (B) that just happens to be intermediate between the other two in some respect (Lee & Freire, 2003;Rabinowitz, Grant, Howe & Walsh, 1994).Our transitive reasoning capacity is said to be important for acquiring many cognitive concepts (see Krackhardt & Kilduff, 1999). It is also an integral part of children's educational progression, such that "in history class, one has to determine which event or personality preceded another; in geography, altitudes are represented by different colors; in geometry, measurement operations are performed;..." (Artman & Cahan, 1993, pp.753). Transitivity even features i...

In a study of the relationship among three temporal dimensions, viz., competence, extension, and evaluation, and a number of personality variables including ego strength, external control, and dogmatism for 21 males and 19 females time competence and temporal evaluation related closely to a number of these variables while the relationship with extension was weak. The implications were discussed with reference to the value and validity of measures of temporal extension.

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