The Effect of Self-Esteem on Attitudes Toward Aging in the Elderly

Objective People's attitudes about aging are formed in early childhood, develop in adulthood, and are fully shaped in old age. Our study aimed to investigate the effect of self-esteem on attitudes toward aging in the elderly. Method A total of 264 people over the age of 65 without any known psychiatric or neurologic disease were included in the study. The sociodemographic data form, Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale (RSES) with 12 sub-dimensions, and Attitude to Aging Questionnaire (AAQ) with three sub-dimensions were applied to each participant. Pearson correlation analysis was used to evaluate the relationship between quantitative variables. Hierarchical multiple regression analysis was used to determine the factors predicting the attitude toward aging. Results A moderately significant negative relationship was found between the AAQ sub-dimension of psychosocial loss score and RSES sub-dimension self-esteem (r=-0.340, p=0<0.001), continuity of self-concept (r=-0.258, p<0.001), depressive affect (r=-0.423, p<0.001), and psychosomatic symptoms (r=-0.311, p<0.001). Self-esteem was found to be predictive of attitude toward aging. When sociodemographic factors were controlled, it was found that 25.6% of the variance in attitude toward psychosocial loss (R² change=25.6; p<0.001), 30.5% of the variance in attitude toward physical change (R² change=30.5; p<0.001), and 34.9% of the variance in attitude toward psychosocial development (R² change=34.9; p<0.001) could be explained by the specified sub-dimensions of RSES. Conclusion In our study, it was observed that self-esteem shaped from childhood to the present day is at least as effective as sociodemographic characteristics in the attitude toward aging.