Abstract
Although a large body of research has demonstrated the predictive power of subjective ageing for several decisive developmental outcomes, there remains some controversy about whether subjective ageing truly represents a unique construct. Thus, information about the convergent and discriminant validity of different approaches to measuring subjective ageing is still critically needed. Using data from the 2014 wave of the German Ageing Survey, we examined how three established subjective ageing measures (subjective age, global attitude toward own ageing, multidimensional ageing-related cognitions) were inter-related as well as distinct from general dispositions (optimism, self-efficacy) and well-being (negative affect, depressive symptoms, self-rated health). Using correlational and multivariate regression analysis, we found that the three subjective ageing measures were significantly inter-related (r = |.09| to |.30|), and that each measure was distinct from general dispositions and well-being. The overlap with dispositional and well-being measures was lowest for subjective age and highest for global attitudes towards own ageing. The correlation between global attitudes towards own ageing and optimism was particularly striking. Despite the high convergent validity of the different dimensions of ageing cognitions, we nevertheless observed stronger associations between specific dimensions of ageing cognitions with negative affect and self-rated health. We conclude that researchers should be aware of the multidimensional nature of subjective ageing. Furthermore, subjective age appears to be a highly aggregated construct and future work is needed to clarify its correlates and reference points.
Highlights
Research on subjective ageing—that is, personal representations of one’s own old age and the ageing process—has surged over the last decade
We use representative data from adults 40 + in Germany to determine the extent to which three widely used subjective ageing measures are empirically similar and/or distinct from one another as well as five more general dispositional and well-being variables
We examined the intercorrelations among SA, Attitudes Toward Own Ageing (ATOA), the AgeCog scales as well as with the general dispositional and well-being variables based on both raw correlations as well as the correlations corrected for scale reliability
Summary
Research on subjective ageing—that is, personal representations of one’s own old age and the ageing process—has surged over the last decade. Three key measures of subjective ageing: subjective age, attitudes toward own ageing subscale and the ageing cognitions scales. Three measures most commonly used within the subjective ageing literature (cf Westerhof and Wurm 2015) are the single-item assessment of subjective age (SA, Kastenbaum et al 1972; Montepare and Lachman 1989), the Attitudes Toward Own Ageing (ATOA) subscale of the Philadelphia Geriatric Morale Scale (PGCMS, Lawton 1975) and the multidimensional Ageing Cognitions Scales (AgeCog, Steverink et al 2001). The AgeCog scales capture how individuals feel about how they have changed and/or will change as they get older in four distinct dimensions, namely physical decline (e.g. loss in health or vitality), social losses (e.g. no longer being needed by others or decreased respect), continuous growth and personal development, and self-knowledge (Steverink et al 2001; Wurm et al 2007; Klusmann et al 2019b). Researchers have recently used the three measures to validate newer subjective ageing constructs (Brothers et al 2017)
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