Exploring the Commonalities Between Adaptive Resources and Self-Enhancement in Older Adults' Comparative Judgments of Physical Activity

Abstract

Objective-This study examines the extent to which optimism, control beliefs and motivation, and downward social comparison contribute independently to the maintenance of older adults' positive self-evaluations in a functional domain.Method-Adaptive resources/strategies and life satisfaction were measured in personal interviews with 164 community-dwelling older adults. Participants judged their physical activity compared with the average person of their age and wore an accelerometer for 24 hours. Commonality analysis was used to estimate unique versus shared effects of the resource/strategy variables on a residual measure of self-enhancement, obtained by adjusting the comparative judgments for participants' age and objectively measured physical activity.Results-Self-enhancement was positively related to life satisfaction. Perceived control and optimism had shared positive effects on self-enhancement, whereas downward social comparison had a unique positive effect. Discussion-Self-enhancement of physical activity plays a part in at least two adaptive profiles with implications for older adults' well-being and health. Keywords self-enhancement; life satisfaction; comparative judgments; physical activity; accelerometer Compared with others of your age, how physically active are you? Would you say you are more active, the same, or less active than the average person of your age? Chances are, if you answered these questions, you rated yourself above average: Most people do, when asked to compare themselves with the average person on a positive dimension, such as their relative abilities, positive features, and chances of success (Alicke & Govorun, 2005). This phenomenon, sometimes called the "better-than-average effect," has proven to be quite reliable-even in studies that have used representative samples, familiar reference groups, Please address correspondence to: Daniel S. Bailis, Department of Psychology, University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, R3T 2N2; bailisds@cc.umanitoba.ca. Preliminary findings of this research were presented in a poster at the 66th Annual Convention of the Canadian Psychological Association, Montreal, Quebec, June 9-11, 2005. J Aging Health. Author manuscript; available in PMC 2016 July 11. CIHR Author Manuscript CIHR Author Manuscript CIHR Author Manuscriptand dimensions of judgment that can be objectively quantified. Accordingly, it has become known in the psychological literature as a form of self-enhancement bias, which is a broader term for the tendency shared by most people at any age to view themselves in unrealistically positive ways (Taylor & Brown, 1988;Weinstein, 1989).Physical activity is a positive dimension of potential self-evaluation for older adults. To be active at an advanced age signifies that one does not face or has managed to overcome the most commonly recognized barriers to physical activity in later life. Such age-specific barriers are found in the kinesiology literature to include pain or disability, symptoms of chronic disease, fear of injur...

Health Risk Perceptions and Exercise in Older Adulthood

“…As in prior research assessing older adults’ perceived physical activity (e.g., Bailis, Chipperfield, Perry, Newall, & Haynes, 2008; Ruthig & Chipperfield, 2007), participants were asked, “Thinking about the past few months, how would you rate your physical activity,” with responses ranging from 1 ( extremely inactive) through 7 ( extremely active ), with a midpoint of 4 ( moderately active ). Prior research has shown this measure to be significantly associated with other indices of perceived activity level among older individuals, including positive correlations with comparative estimates of physical activity levels (e.g., Bailis, Chipperfield, Perry, Newall, & Haynes, 2008; Hanson & Ruthig, 2012) and negative correlations with health-related activity restriction (e.g., Ruthig, Chipperfield, Newall, Perry, & Hall, 2007). More broadly, it is also positively correlated with older adults’ self-rated health and negatively correlated with the number of existing chronic health conditions (Ruthig et al, 2007).…”

Understanding employee reactions to merit pay: the roles of interpretation of social comparison information and self-esteem

“…PISC also implies identifying upward more frequently, comparers learn from and gain more hope of becoming like superior others (Lockwood & Kunda, 1997; Lange & Crusius, 2015;Webster, Duvall, Gaines, & Smith, 2003), all which should be associated with fewer withdrawal behaviors like quitting. Indeed, SC interpretations that are associated with enhanced self-evaluation have been shown to be positively related to attitude about life (Bailis et al, 2008), attitude about a relationship (B. P. Buunk & vanYperen, 1989), and fewer withdrawal behaviors (e.g., Carmona et al, 2008). Conversely, NISC implies upward contrast which can generate shame and unfavorable self-perceptions (Pounders et al, 2017), and such effects are likely to induce withdrawal behaviors (Kristofferson et al, 2018;Wiersema et al, 2012).…”

A Cognitive-Ecological Approach to Temporal Self-Appraisal

“…For instance, older adults exhibit what is known as the subjective age biasfeeling younger than one actually is (Teuscher, 2009). Other research has shown that older adults self-enhance on physical attributes, and doing so can have a marked well-being benefit (Bailis et al, 2008). However, other research notes that self-enhancement in older adulthood is constrained by reality, and thus, people tend to self-enhance on attributes that afford some interpretive flexibility, such as ambiguous traits (vs. specific traits; Dunning et al, 1989).…”