Feeling sad makes us feel older: Effects of a sad-mood induction on subjective age.

Abstract

A mood-induction paradigm was implemented in a sample of 144 adults covering midlife and old age (40-80 years) to investigate associations between mood and subjective age. Sad or neutral mood was induced by texts and music pieces. Subjective age was operationalized as felt age relative to chronological age. Participants receiving the sad-mood induction reported changes toward older felt ages from pre- to postinduction. Participants receiving the neutral-mood induction reported comparable levels of subjective age at pre- and postinduction. Effects were comparable across middle- and older aged participants. Results suggest that sad affective states might dampen subjective age. (PsycINFO Database Record

“How old do you feel today at work?” Work-related drivers of subjective age in the workplace

“…Armenta et al (2018) extended these ଏndings to the workplace and showed that age-related work events (i.e., age declines or age discrimination) drive daily relative subjective age perceptions. Furthermore, recent studies suggest that even general mood inductions can aଏect (relative) subjective age perceptions (Dutt & Wahl, 2017). The authors argued that negative events can cause negative mood, which functions as a heuristic for evaluation judgements (see Dutt & Wahl, 2017; also see Schwarz & Clore, 1983 and, thus, aଏect (relative) subjective age perceptions (Dutt & Wahl, 2017).…”

“…The authors argued that negative events can cause negative mood, which functions as a heuristic for evaluation judgements (see Dutt & Wahl, 2017; also see Schwarz & Clore, 1983 and, thus, aଏect (relative) subjective age perceptions (Dutt & Wahl, 2017). Translated to the work context, we assume that negative work events induce negative mood and thus increase employees' (relative) subjective age perception (see Dutt & Wahl, 2017), which is potentially also mediated through a diଏerent OFTP (Zacher & Frese, 2009) of employees perceiving more or less negative events. In particular, we investigate general negative events at work, e.g., interpersonal conଏicts, negative feedback and discrimination (see Appendix A) as drivers of (relative) subjective age variability.…”

“…Recent ageing studies showed that several positive variables, e.g., high life satisfaction (Montepare & Lachman, 1989), good physical (Caudroit et al, 2012;Stephan, Sutin, & Terracciano, 2015) and psychological health (Keyes & Westerhof, 2012), are related to a younger relative subjective age. Nevertheless, most studies, which tried to modify relative subjective age perceptions, used negative stimuli for their experimental manipulation, e.g., negative age stereotypes (Eibach et al, 2010) or negative mood (Dutt & Wahl, 2017). Geraci et al (2018) showed that cognitive testing increases subjective age perceptions; they also tested if positive performance feedback can buଏer these negative eଏects.…”

“…Assuming that relative subjective age varies over time raises questions on what drives relative subjective age variability. Several (quasi-) experimental studies showed that it is possible to modify (relative) subjective age perceptions (see, e.g., Dutt & Wahl, 2017;Eibach, Mock, & Courtney, 2010;Geraci, De Forrest, Hughes, Saenz, & Tirso, 2018). Furthermore, Kotter-Gruehn, Neupert, and showed that, in a daily diary study with retirement home residents (age range: 60 to 90 years), relative subjective age ଏuctuates in the course of a week, and Armenta, Scheibe, Stroebe, Postmes, and Van Yperen (2018) demonstrated a similar variability of relative subjective age 1 within a workweek in a sample of older workers (age range: 50 to 70 years).…”

Felt Age Among Racial/Ethnic Minority Older Adults Attending a Senior Center

“…Research also shows that objective physical/functional health conditions and self-perceptions of health explain the largest proportions of variance in felt age, with poorer health contributing to feeling older (Ambrosi-Randić et al, 2018; Barrett, 2003; Bergland et al, 2014; Demakakos et al, 2007; Hubley & Russell, 2009). Felt age is also associated with psychological health factors such as self-efficacy, internal locus of control, optimism, extraversion, and openness (Bellingtier & Neupert, 2020; Canada et al, 2013; Hubley & Hultsch, 1994; Teuscher, 2009); depressive symptoms (Choi & DiNitto, 2014); positive/negative affect and life satisfaction (Dutt & Wahl, 2017; Kotter-Grühn et al, 2015); and memory self-efficacy and cognitive test scores (e.g., word-list memory recall; Ihira et al, 2015; Stephan et al, 2011).…”