Thinking Young, Extending Life

"Children as young as three or four have already taken in the age stereotypes of their culture."
"These age stereotypes are communicated to children through many sources, ranging from stories to social media. Individuals of all ages can benefit from bolstering their positive images of aging."
"We found those who expressed more positive age beliefs at baseline were less likely to develop dementia ... than those who expressed more negative age beliefs."
"We know ... that exposing older individuals to negative age stereotypes exacerbates stress, whereas exposing them to positive age stereotypes can act as a buffer against experiencing stress."
Becca Levy, professor of psychology, Yale University

"Sixty-year-olds felt like they were 46. Seventy-year-olds felt like they were 53. Eighty-year-olds felt like they were 65. It looks like this is pretty consistent across age groups."
"People know that they are aging, but they are evaluating themselves and their lives and reporting feeling about 20 percent younger than their current age."
"Negative views about aging are communicated to us early in life, through media, books and movies, and what our friends and family tell us. These attitudes are present and pervasive already in childhood, so naturally it's hard to enact meaningful change to these attitudes -- but that's what we're trying to do at the moment."
"Part of that [thinking younger by seniors] might arise from not wanting to be considered an older adult. As a result, people could be perpetually pushing what is considered an older adult into the future."
William Chopik, assistant professor of psychology, Michigan State University

"Aging well is not only escaping or delaying disease."
"Feeling good about your life is important and should be considered an important aspect of healthy aging."
Paola Sebastiani, professor of biostatistics, Boston University School of Public Health

One study on attitudes to aging concluded that as people become older they express the opinion that they find it strange to contemplate how old they actually are, because they feel much younger than their chronological age. And then there was the study that took to examining the attitudes of children of centenarians, making the discovery that those children, if they were healthy and long-lived like their parents share a sense of purpose, finding meaning in their lives, in comparison with the thoughts of the general population.


Evidence exists that positive attitudes about aging may even be the cause of a reduction in the risk of acquiring dementia, arguably among the most apprehensively-viewed consequences of aging. The elderly endowed with their own positive sense of time, place and person share a sense of serenity and pleasure in life. Balanced against the public onslaught of negative messaging about aging in the media, the workplace and pervasive throughout popular culture.

So what makes it fascinating for researchers to study is the elderly who firmly grasp their personal sense of confidence as opposed to the general public firmly entrenched in the belief that to be elderly is to be inconsequential generally. Those who can blithely rise about such widespread cultural views and in fact remain steadfastly oblivious to them, firm in their own beliefs of self-value are healthier both psychologically and physically.

Research shows that older people who have positive outlooks on aging eat healthier, exercise more and recover more quickly from illnesses. Credit Fred R. Conrad/The New York Times

Dr. Chopik's study incorporates a survey of over a half million Americans through the Internet, finding that irrespective of people aging, they continue to feel themselves younger than their true age. Subjects from the ages of ten to 89 were questioned to determine that as people grow older their views undergo a change in perception. Teens and young adults equate becoming 50 with old age, an attitude that persists into old age. The elderly on the other hand view 80 as old when they are just 70, and when they become 80, it is 90 that appears to them to be 'old'.


Data from the New England Centenarian Study was used in the study of centenarians' offspring, following close to four thousand centenarians, some of their siblings and children, since 1994. Healthy, long-lived children of centenarians with an average age of 82 were compared by researchers from the Boston University School of Public Health. The study subjects were separated into three groups; their 'birth cohort' (a group who lived only to their early 70s); the study subjects' spouses; and those included in the Health and Retirement Study, a U.S.-wide study of over 30,000 people older than 50.


Respondents were asked their opinion, whether to agree or disagree with statements such as: "I enjoy making plans for the future and working to make them a reality", and "My daily activities often seem trivial and unimportant to me", to measure psychological well-being. Children of centenarians were found to express greater purpose in life than any other of the three groups. For her part, Dr. Levy evaluated 4,765 older people with an average age of 72, free of dementia when the study began, and followed them for a succeeding four years. A series of questions were posed to the participants relating to their aging beliefs.

A protective effect was found for all participants inclusive of those carrying the E4 variant of the gene APOE known to raise the risk of dementia and carried by about a quarter of all Americans, though dementia develops in only 47 percent of this group. It is unknown why the remaining 53 percent never develop dementia, but the APOE E4 carriers with positive beliefs on aging had a 2.7 percent risk of developing dementia while carriers with negative beliefs had a 6.1 percent risk of acquiring dementia.