Change in subjective age among older people over an eight-year follow-up: 'getting older and feeling younger?'

The purpose of this prospective study was to describe changes in subjective age over an 8-year period among community-dwelling people aged 65 to 84 years in Finland. At the baseline 1155 respondents met study criteria and 451 of these participated in the follow-up study. Participants described in years the age they felt themselves to be (feel age) and their preferred age (ideal age). Discrepancy scores relative to chronological age were calculated for feel age and ideal age. No significant mean-level changes were observed in the age discrepancy scores over the 8-year time frame. The baseline discrepancy between chronological and feel age remained constant among 48% of the participants, with 26% reporting a younger and 26% an older feel age. Similar patterns were observed in the discrepancy between chronological age and ideal age. The findings point both to stability and to individual variability in feel and preferred age identification over time in older adults.