Subjective age and health perceptions of older persons: maintaining the youthful bias in sickness and in health.
Self-reports of 250 persons fifty years of age and older confirm the increasing bias toward reporting a more youthful age as one increases in years. Optimistic perceptions of health care also maintained in older persons. Results from two subsets of this sample (N = 48) further indicate that the youthful and optimistic bias occurs in older persons with poorer and failing health (N = 23) as well as for persons in stable and good health (N = 25). Given the importance of self-perceptions in quality of life and in determining survivability, and given the indication that such measures are modifiable, it is suggested that future research be aimed at identifying those self-perceptions of health and age that are most susceptible to intervention.
Staats
S
S
Ohio State University at Newark.
Heaphey
K
K
Miller
D
D
Partlo
C
C
Romine
N
N
Stubbs
K
K
D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over / Q000523:psychology; D000375:Aging / Q000523:psychology*; D005260:Female; D015577:Geriatric Assessment; D006304:Health Status; D006801:Humans; D008137:Longitudinal Studies; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D011788:Quality of Life; D012649:Self Concept; D012803:Sick Role