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Variations in adults' subjective ages in relation to birthday nearness, age awareness, and attitudes toward aging

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Abstract

This research examined the extent to which variations in adults' subjective age identities were related to information provided by proximal age markers, which are specific age-symbolic experiences presumed to channel shifts in age identities. To this end, adults' psychological, physical, and social subjective age identities were examined in relation to the nearness of their birthdays. In the absence of proximal age information, younger and older adults showed distinctive age-related changes in subjective age. On the other hand, older men's and women's social subjective ages as well as older women's psychological subjective age were less youthful the nearer their birthdays. However, younger adults' age identities did not vary with the closeness of their birthdays. Several gender differences in addition to the moderating effects of adults' awareness of their age and their attitudes toward aging were also observed.

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  1. Joann M. Montepare

    Present address: Department of Psychology, Brandeis University, 02254, Waltham, Massachusetts

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  1. Tufts University, Medford, Massachusetts

    Joann M. Montepare

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  1. Joann M. Montepare
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Montepare, J.M. Variations in adults' subjective ages in relation to birthday nearness, age awareness, and attitudes toward aging. J Adult Dev 3, 193–203 (1996). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02281963

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