Aging 5 Years in 5 Minutes: The Effect of Taking a Memory Test on Older Adults' Subjective Age

• Published in: Psychological science Vol. 24; no. 12; pp. 2481 - 2488
• Main Authors: Hughes, Matthew L., Geraci, Lisa, De Forrest, Ross L.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Los Angeles, CA SAGE Publications 01.12.2013; Sage Publications; SAGE PUBLICATIONS, INC
• Subjects: Adolescent; Adult; Adult. Elderly; Age; Age Factors; Aged; Aged, 80 and over; Ageing; Aging; Aging - psychology; Biological and medical sciences; Developmental psychology; Female; Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology; Health status; Human; Humans; Learning. Memory; Male; Medical screening; Memory; Memory - physiology; Mental health; Middle Aged; Neuropsychology; Older people; Perceptions; Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry; Psychology. Psychophysiology; Self-Assessment; Social attribution, perception and cognition; Social psychology; Stereotypes; Subjective age; Vocabulary; Young Adult; context; subjective age; stereotypes; memory; aging; Human; Context; Senescence; Memory; Stereotype; Cognition; Experimental study; Subjective evaluation; Social cognition; Elderly; Age
• ISSN: 0956-7976; 1467-9280
• DOI: 10.1177/0956797613494853

How old one feels—one's subjective age—has been shown to predict important psychological and health outcomes. The current studies examined the effect of taking a standard memory test on older adults' subjective age. Study 1 showed that older adults felt older after taking a standard neuropsychological screening test and participating in a free-recall experiment than they felt at baseline. Study 2 showed that the effect was selective to older adults: Younger adults' subjective age was not affected by participating in the memory experiment. Study 3 showed that the subjective-aging effect was specific to memory, as taking a vocabulary test for a similar amount of time did not affect older adults' subjective age. Finally, Study 4 showed that simply expecting to take a memory test subjectively aged older adults. The results indicate that being in a memory-testing context affects older adults' self-perception by making them feel older.