Measuring Self-Perceptions of Aging: Differences Between Measures When Predicting Health Outcomes

Abstract

The majority of self-perceptions of aging (SPA) research uses either a combination of the Age-related Cognition (AgeCog) scales of Ongoing Development and Physical Loss, or the Attitudes Towards Own Aging (ATOA) subscale to assess views on aging. Although these scales are used interchangeably, the valence (positive/negative) and the specificity of the view on aging (domain-based/general) being assessed are not consistent. This study investigates how different measures of SPA relate to one another and whether they differentially predict various types of health outcomes (psychological/physiological; well-being/ill-being). Data from the 2008 and 2014 waves of the German Aging Survey (DEAS; n=3,745), a population-based representative survey of adults aged 40 to 95, was used to examine the relationship between the AgeCog scales and the ATOA subscale, as well as the differences in the types of health outcomes each predicts. The correlations between the AgeCog scales and the ATOA were higher than the correlation between the AgeCog scales (p < .001). The AgeCog scale of Ongoing Development significantly predicted psychological health outcomes across a six-year period, while the AgeCog scale of Physical Loss and the ATOA subscale predicted both physiological and psychological health outcomes. Evidence supports using the AgeCog scale of Ongoing Development to predict domain-relevant, psychological health outcomes. However, the multidimensionality of SPA is best measured by the ATOA subscale or a combination of the two AgeCog scales. Both forms of measurement were found to maximize the amount of explained variance for psychological and physiological indicators of well-being and ill-being.

Associations of Agency and Communion With Domain-Specific Self-Perceptions of Aging: A Cross-Sectional Study In Old-Old Adults in Poor Health

“…Future studies should also investigate associations of SPA with personality traits that relate to negative outcomes, such as unmitigated agency (i.e., a focus on the self to the exclusion of others, e.g., hostility) and unmitigated communion (i.e., a focus on others to the exclusion of the self, e.g., overinvolvement with other's problems and neglect of own needs). Moreover, our findings stress the necessity of investigating multiple domains of SPA, since constructs of interest might be associated with one domain, but not with another (Boeder & Tse, 2020). Using measures of general SPA might thus mask potential associations of important factors with specific SPA domains.…”

Dyadic analysis of very old parents’ and their children’s interdependence and self-perceptions of aging

“…The term “self-perceptions of aging” is often mentioned interchangeably with the term attitudes toward own aging to assess views on aging (Boeder & Tse, 2021). Most studies on self-perceptions of aging use the Attitudes Toward Own Aging subscale from Lawton’s Philadelphia Geriatric Centre Morale Scale (PGCMS; Lawton, 1975), due to its availability in large, publicly available datasets such as the U.S. Health and Retirement Study .…”

Latent profile analysis of self‐perceptions of ageing among Chinese community‐dwelling older adults

“…On the one hand, all items in B‐APQ were originally developed from community older adults' experiences and beliefs of ageing using a focus group method, including beliefs about awareness of ageing, beliefs about the impact and personal control of ageing, and emotional responses to ageing, thereby this measure could be considered as the holistic representation of beliefs about ageing 2 . On the other hand, similar to other measurement tools of SPA, 41 B‐APQ could capture the multidimensional nature of SPA and effectively predict health‐related outcomes but also capture malleable characteristics of SPA from a self‐regulatory lens.…”