“I felt so old this morning.” Short-term variations in subjective age and the role of trait subjective age: Evidence from the ILSE/EMIL ecological momentary assessment data.

Abstract

Subjective age, how old people feel compared to their chronological age, is a central indicator of age identity and highly predictive for developmental outcomes. While mostly used as a trait-like concept in previous research, recent studies employing experimental designs and daily assessments suggest that subjective age can vary after experimental manipulations or between days. However, less is known about whether subjective age varies over even shorter time frames such as within moments on a given day, how such shortterm variability differs by age and its association with trait subjective age. We examined these questions with data obtained from 123 young-old (M age = 67.19 years) and 47 old-old adults (M age = 86.59 years) who reported their momentary subjective age six times a day over 7 consecutive days as they were going about their everyday lives. Participants felt younger on a large majority of occasions, and 25% of the total variability in subjective age could be attributed to within-person variation. Within-person variability in subjective age amounted to an average of about 3 years from one moment to the next and did not differ between age groups. However, those with younger trait subjective ages exhibited larger moment-to-moment variation. Our findings extend the literature on subjective age by showing that how old people feel can vary on a momentary basis and that state and trait components of subjective age are related. Further research should investigate the contextual predictors of variability in subjective age and the links between trait and state concepts and developmental outcomes.

Momentary subjective age is associated with perceived and physiological stress in the daily lives of old and very old adults.

“…At the within-person level, momentary subjective age and perceived stress correlated at r = .09 ( p < .001), subjective age and cortisol correlated at r = .04 ( p = .007), and perceived stress and salivary cortisol correlated at r = .05 ( p < .001). As previously reported (Kornadt et al, 2021), around a quarter of the variability of momentary subjective age was attributable to within-person variability (ICC = .73). 4 For cortisol (after controlling for Level 1 confounders), 75% of variability was attributable to within-person variability (ICC = .25), and 65% for perceived stress (ICC = .35).…”

“…One might consequently also expect a lower coupling between cortisol and subjective age in older individuals with poor rather than good physical health or cognitive functioning. Furthermore, in the current data set, people with younger trait subjective ages tended to vary more in their momentary subjective age ratings, presumably because of a more flexible mindset for what aging means (Kornadt et al, 2021). In addition, HPA axis functioning as well as age-related experiences and their interaction also differ between men and women.…”

“…Due to missing values on the stress variables, the sample size in the current analysis differs slightly from the one reported inKornadt et al (2021) and thus, the ICC and absolute numbers for variances in momentary subjective age deviate slightly between the two analyses, even though they are based on the same data set.MOMENTARY SUBJECTIVE AGE AND STRESS…”

“…2Previous analyses with the same data set (Kornadt et al, 2021) show that variability in subjective age on the day level is very low compared to variability on the momentary level and aggregating information to the day level would limit our statistical power to detect within-person covariation. Additionally, for cortisol, other operationalizations, such as the area under the curve would need to be used to depict the day level in cortisol, which would make findings for the different stress measures rather complementary than comparable, and also go beyond the scope of the present article.…”

Awareness of age-related gains and losses as moderators of daily stress reactivity in middle- and older-adulthood

“…More recently, results of an ecological momentary assessment study indicated that subjective age can vary from momentto-moment within a day, with similar degrees of variability observed among young-old and old-old adults (70). Studies have also shown that daily stressor exposure is related to daily felt age among older adults not exposed to higher levels of negative life events (71), and that higher daily AARC-losses is associated with higher daily negative affect (5).…”