As a serious college student I remember feeling old before my time compared to some of my classmates who would blow off studying to socialize. Now as a middle-aged professor I don't "feel" as old as many of my peers (even though my daughter reminds me all of the time that I am "very old"). Apparently my experience is shared by Yoko Ono:
Chronological age, or how many years old you are, is just one way to think about aging. You can also consider: Biological age - how healthy you are; Social age - the habits you have and the roles that you take on; and Psychological age - how well you reason and think.
A recent study highlights how people's perceptions of their Biological and Social ages can influence their Subjective ages - or how old they feel. Stephan, Demulier, and Terracciano (2012) asked more than 1,000 French adults ages 18-91 to rate their physical health, to complete a version of the Big Five personality inventory, and to report their subjective ages.
The results support the idea that how old we feel is based on more than how old we are. These effects varied depending on the ages of the participants. The authors did not state the ranges of the age groups, but we would usually assume that their young adults were ages 18-39, middle-aged adults were 40-59, and older adults were 60-91.
A strong relationship between chronological age, health, and subjective age emerged. Middle aged and older adult participants who rated themselves as being in good health were more likely to say that they felt younger than they actually were. Stephan et al. clarify that on average, these middle aged adults felt 2 years younger and these older adults felt four years younger. These results support the importance of considering a person's Biological age.
When the authors controlled for health and demographic factors a relationship between chronological age, certain Big Five traits, and subjective age appeared. Because our personality traits often relate to our behaviors and activities, these results support the importance of assessing a person's Social age. For example, young adults who were high in Conscientiousness felt older than they really were. Conscientiousness implies being responsible and organized. Motivated and reliable young adults might feel like they are older than their peers because these are not characteristics that Western culture often associates with that age.
Middle aged and older adults who were high in Openness to Experience, and older adults who were high in Extraversion felt younger than they were. Openness to Experience has to do with engaging in diverse interests and being open to new ideas; Extraversion is associated with being out-going and dynamic. Both are traits that Western culture does not associate with middle and older age, so people with these traits are likely to feel younger than they really are as they age.
These results explain the experience that Yoko Ono and I share. When I was a young adult, my conscientious behavior did not match with my stereotype about my age: so I felt older. Now as a middle aged person who has broad interests and loves creativity, my self-perception again runs contrary to the stereotype about my age: so I feel younger. In some decades, I can predict that I will continue to feel younger because I am relatively high in Extraversion.
This research also raises a question about Western stereotypes about age. What does it mean that we view young adults as irresponsible, middle-agers and seniors as stuck in their ways, and senior citizens as being unsociable? If we can imagine a time that these negative assumptions are no longer part of our culture, it would have implications for subjective age. Instead of feeling older or younger than our chronological age we would simply be that old and recognize that at all ages individuals can differ on Big Five traits.
Further Reading:
A pre-publication version of the Stephan et al. (2012) article can be read here thanks to the National Institute of Health. The Psychology and Aging article can be accessed through your local college library.
A blog post from the AARP about research done by Rippon and Steptoe (2015): "Feeling Old vs Being Old." More support for Biological age!
Know an Extraverted senior? The social networking site Meet Up has groups around the world for outgoing older people who want to socialize!
On social media I have seen a lot of posts about introverts and extraverts (or extroverts): things they want us to know; their everyday struggles; things we can do for them. These traits have been around for a long time and comprise one of the Big Five aspects of personality. In short, introverts get energized by alone time whereas extraverts are energized by time with others. This difference is demonstrated by our meme featuring Introvert Cat:
This meme implies that introverts would prefer to eat alone rather than go out to eat with people they like. It also implies that introverts enjoy solitude more than socializing. However, past research suggests that both introverts and extraverts get more enjoyment from socializing than they do from being alone. If everyone has more fun acting extraverted, why might Introvert Cat shy away from such an opportunity?
One suggestion is highlighted in research done by Zelenski, Whelan, Nealis, Besner, Santoro, and Wynn (2013). In a preliminary study they asked introverts and extraverts to imagine themselves in different scenarios: some scenarios would require them to act introverted whereas the other scenarios would require them to act extraverted. For each scenario 97 undergraduate participants, who had been classified as introverted or as extraverted, rated themselves on a list of positive and negative adjectives based on how they thought they would feel: this was a measure of their affective forecasting. The results demonstrated that when introverts imagined themselves acting extraverted, they were more likely than extraverts to predict negative emotions and feeling self-conscious, and less likely than extraverts to predict positive emotions and enjoyment. However, these results cannot tell us what either group's emotional experiences would be in a real-world situation that calls for them to act one way or the other.
To get closer to that answer, Zelenski et al. conducted four follow-up experiments from which the results were combined. Thus 495 undergraduate students, who had been classified as introverted or extraverted, were randomly assigned to act either introverted or extraverted while interacting with others in a laboratory setting. In each experiment the participants were given instructions on how they should act, then asked to imagine how they will feel once the interaction begins - again, they rated themselves on adjectives to measure their affective forecasting. Next, they interacted with others in one of four ways: taking part in a group discussion with other participants; being interviewed by a confederate; planning a day's activities or building with blocks while partnered with a confederate; putting together a timed puzzle with other participants. At the end of each experiment, the participants rated how they had actually felt during the activity.
The measures of affective forecasting demonstrated that introverts were especially likely to have low predictions of positive emotions when preparing to act extraverted. In addition, introverts were especially likely to have high predictions of negative emotions and self-consciousness when preparing to act extraverted. However, there was little difference between introverts and extraverts on their predictions of how "pleasant" the experience of acting extraverted would be.
Measures of the participants' ratings of their actual experiences demonstrate that all participants who had been assigned to act extraverted experienced more positive emotion and less negative emotion than the participants who had been assigned to act introverted. Additionally, the level of positive emotions was higher and the level of negative emotion was lower than they had predicted beforehand. As well, all participants overestimated how self-conscious they would feel; this was especially true for the participants who were preparing to act extraverted. So we see that both introverts and extroverts had a more positive experience than they thought they would have and that this effect was most pronounced when their behavior was extraverted.
Zelenski et al. compared participants' predictions with their reports of the experience to estimate how accurate introverts and extraverts are in predicting their emotional experiences. They found that introverts were comparatively less accurate: introverts were more likely to overestimate negative emotional reactions and that this was especially true when introverts were planning on acting extraverted. Likewise, introverts were more likely than extraverts to inaccurately over-estimate their degree of self-consciousness when asked to act in an extraverted way.
These findings may have some limitations, as one's experience in a laboratory may be different than in real life. For example, in real life you are not instructed to act introverted or extraverted, although one could argue that acting extraverted may be rewarded in American culture. Another limitation that was not addressed by the authors is that 70% of the participant were women. Past research suggests that women are less likely than men to be introverted, so it is not clear if the introverted and extraverted participants were equally represented by male and female students. If they were, one could ask if the introverted females were somehow different than average females - a question that could influence how well the results would generalize to the population at large.
Nevertheless, Zelenski et al. conclude that part of what may drive Introvert Cat to decline a dinner invitation could be an error in his affective forecasting: he would have enjoyed himself more than he realized. If introverts underestimate the enjoyment and over-estimate the pain of social situations, they may mistakenly say, "no" to experiences that would increase their happiness. On the other hand, this is not to imply that all introverts should try to be extraverts! On the contrary, the authors write:
Despite our speculations about acting extraverted..., we feel compelled to explicitly state that we do not view introverts as inferior or in need of psychological change. (Many of us have pronounced introverted tendencies of our own!) Some introverts might desire the potential happiness boost that an acting extraverted exercise might provide. We believe that studying the potential of such a tool and providing accurate information about its effects may ultimately produce hedonic benefits for some, but we have no interest in forcing it on anyone" (p. 1105)."
Further Reading:
The Zelenski et al. (2013) article can be accessed through your local college library.
Find out if you are an introvert or an extravert by taking this Psychology Today quiz. If you end up scoring in the middle, you may be an ambivert - find out about yourself in this Wall Street Journal article.
Is Western culture biased against introverts? In this TED talk, writer and lawyer, Susan Cain, argues that introverts have overlooked positive qualities that should be valued.
