Multidimensional subjective ages and cognitive performance in Australian adults aged 18 to 84 years

Systematic reviews and meta-analyses have found that feeling younger than your chronological age is related to fewer cognitive concerns among mid-life and older adults (Alonso Debreczeni & Bailey, 2020; Fernandez-Ballbe et al., 2023). Among adults over 50, participants who felt older were more likely to have poorer memory and executive functioning 10 years later (Qiao et al., 2021). Furthermore, feeling older was related to more subjective cognitive difficulties and mental fatigue, and these relationships were partially mediated by depressive symptoms and self-reported health (Siedlecki et al., 2024). To date, all studies have measured subjective age using a single ‘felt age’ item. Research has yet to examine whether cognition is related to dimension-specific subjective ages across the adult lifespan. The current study aims to examine whether six dimensions of subjective age (Felt, Look, Behave, Mental, Interest and Ideal ages) individually predict performance in three app-based cognitive tasks: the trail making test, Stroop test, and spatial memory task. In line with previous studies, we expect younger subjective ages will be associated with better cognitive performance. This study will also explore whether the degree of daily variability in subjective age (calculated as an intra-individual standard deviation) would predict cognitive performance. It may be that people who have more stable subjective ages would have better cognition. Based on stereotype embodiment theory (Levy, 2009) and lifespan developmental models (Wurm et al., 2017), self-perceptions of aging and expectations regarding aging as superordinate views of aging constructs above subjective age and have been shown to influence health behaviours. As such, they will be included as covariates to better understand the effects of multidimensional subjective age and its daily variability.