The Toll of Feeling Older: Subjective Age Moderates the Associations between Anxiety Sensitivity and Symptoms of Anxiety and Depression during COVID-19 Pandemic

Does Awareness of Aging Matter? The Moderating Function of Awareness of Age-Related Change on the Relationships Between COVID-19 Disruption, Perceived Stress, and Affect

OBJECTIVES

How people reflect on their own age may influence their well-being in the face of disruptions associated with the coronavirus (COVID-19). Subjective aging was operationalized in terms of one's awareness of age-related change (AARC), specifically, the gains and losses associated with aging. We developed a measure assessing disruptions to daily life associated with the COVID-19 pandemic across 3 dimensions (i.e., Social and Lifestyle Disruption, Work and Health Disruption, and Others Contracting COVID-19). We hypothesized that COVID-19 disruption would be positively associated with both AARC-losses and AARC-gains. Greater COVID-19 disruption would also be associated with poorer psychosocial outcomes (higher perceived stress and negative affect [NA] and lower positive affect [PA]) and these associations would be stronger for those reporting greater AARC-losses and weaker for those reporting greater AARC-gains.

METHODS

Cross-sectional questionnaire data were collected from 263 participants from the United States (aged 40-83; mean age: 62.88 years, standard deviation = 9.00; 56.3% females).

RESULTS

After controlling for age, gender, education, employment, socioeconomic status, and physical functioning, greater Work and Health Disruption was associated with greater AARC-losses. Greater Social and Lifestyle Disruption was associated with both greater AARC-gains and AARC-losses. Moderation effects showed an exacerbating effect of AARC-losses on NA in the face of Work and Health Disruption and a protective effect of AARC-gains on PA in the context of Social and Lifestyle Disruption.

DISCUSSION

We extend research detailing antecedents of AARC and highlight the need for longitudinal research that considers the ever-changing nature of the pandemic.

The cognitive tenacity of self-directed ageism

Ageism refers to prejudice or discrimination based on a person's age. When ageism is directed at older people, it is unique in two ways: it is socially condoned in a manner that other types of prejudice are not, and the animus is eventually self-directed. Of central interest here is why ageism becomes self-directed in late adulthood, despite its potentially harmful personal costs. We present a cognitive model in which negative ageist beliefs become increasingly accessible and difficult to eliminate owing to broader developmental shifts in mentation. Given that these effects are contingent on our social environment, systemic changes in societal conceptions of age and aging are needed if we are to reduce vulnerability to self-directed ageism.

The experience of aging before one's time during the coronavirus pandemic among war veterans in Israel

Subjective age, the personal sense of how old one feels, is an important concomitant of posttraumatic outcomes in the second half of life. The present study aims to disentangle the interrelationships between posttraumatic stress disorder symptoms (PTSS) and subjective age, during the COVID-19 pandemic, among a sample of Israeli older adults who are veterans of the 1973 Yom Kippur War. Participants were interviewed in 2015 (T1; N = 259; mean age = 65.23, SD = 5.32) and in 2020, during the COVID-19 outbreak in Israel (T2). We assessed subjective age, PTSS, fear of COVID-19, self-rated health, and COVID-19 related accelerated subjective aging. A cross-lagged path analysis showed that while higher PTSS at T1 were associated with an increase in subjective age from T1 to T2, subjective age at T1 was not associated with PTSS at T2. PTSS at T1, but not subjective age, were associated with higher COVID-19 related accelerated subjective aging at T2. Older adults with continued PTSS due to past traumas, might be susceptible to the stressors of COVID-19 expressed in the personal subjective experience of having aged quickly in a short period of time. Our findings also suggest that in the context of stress and trauma, subjective age is more appropriately conceived as an outcome variable rather than a predictor of PTSS.

Subjective age, worry and risk-related perceptions in older adults in times of a pandemic

During the Covid-19 pandemic, older people have been in the spotlight of the public debate. Given their higher risk of severe outcomes of the disease, they have been described as especially vulnerable and as a burden to others and society. We thus wanted to investigate how older people’s perception of their own age, that is their subjective age, as well as their Covid-19 related risks and worries were related during the pandemic and whether these relationships varied according to participants’ subjective health. We used data from the longitudinal CRISIS study which was conducted in the Grand-Duchy of Luxembourg in June and October 2020. Participants were aged 60–98 and responded on questionnaires regarding their subjective age, worry of falling ill with Covid-19, perceived risk of contracting the virus, perceived risk of falling seriously ill if they contracted Covid-19, as well as their subjective health and covariates. Three cross-lagged panel models were constructed to explore the longitudinal, bidirectional relationships between the variables. Cross-sectionally, a higher subjective age was related to more perceived risk of a serious course of disease. Longitudinally, subjective age and worry did not show any significant association over time, and neither did subjective age and perceived risk of contracting the virus. However, subjective health significantly moderated the relationship of worry and subjective age, showing different trajectories in the relationship depending on whether subjective health was good or bad. Higher perceived risk of falling seriously ill increased subjective age over time. Again, subjective health moderated this relationship: the perceived risk of falling seriously ill affected subjective age only for those with better subjective health. Our findings show the interactive relationship between subjective age and Covid-19 related cognitions and emotions and provide guidance for identifying older people that are most susceptible for negative age-related communication during the pandemic.

Risk Factors Associated With Increased Anxiety Sensitivity in Children and Adolescents in Northwest China During COVID-19 Pandemic Lockdown

Purpose

A large body of evidence has revealed that the sudden outbreak of public health emergencies induces dramatic effects on the mental health of the general public. We aimed to investigate the level of anxiety sensitivity and its risk factors in children and adolescents from northwest China during the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown in early 2020.

Methods

A cross-sectional survey was conducted through the Wenjuanxing platform using a convenience sampling method between 18 and 26 February 2020. The self-designed questionnaire contained sociodemographic characteristics, factors associated with the COVID-19 pandemic, and the Childhood Anxiety Sensitivity Index (CASI) scale. The data from 1,091 valid questionnaires from students aged 9–17 years were analyzed using ANOVA, multiple linear regression, and binary logistic regression.

Results

The average CASI scores were 11.47 ± 6.631, and 642 students (58.9%) had prominent anxiety sensitivity. Gender, education level, family members participating in anti-COVID-19 work, getting ill and needing medical help during the lockdown, feeling afraid or having heart palpitations on hearing things associated with COVID-19, believing that COVID-19 would have adverse impacts on themselves or their family in the future, and fear of infection were identified as significant factors for elevated levels of anxiety sensitivity (p < 0.05). We established a multiple linear regression model for the anxiety sensitivity score. Risk factors found for anxiety sensitivity in children and adolescents during the COVID-19 lockdown included studying in secondary or high school, becoming ill during the pandemic, feeling afraid or experiencing rapid heartbeat or palpitations on hearing about the COVID-19 pandemic, thinking that COVID-19 would have an adverse impact on themselves or their family in the future, and fear of infection.

Conclusions

During the COVID-19 pandemic and home quarantine, scores measuring the prevalence of anxiety sensitivity in children and adolescents from northwest China were elevated. We should develop measures that especially target possible risk factors to intervene against and prevent anxiety sensitivity in children and adolescents in both the current and future pandemics.

Has the COVID-19 pandemic affected older adults' personal and general views on aging? Evidence for losses and gains

The coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic might have affected older adults' personal and general views on aging (VoA) because they were frequently, particularly during the early phase of the pandemic, portrayed as a homogeneous, vulnerable group in the media and in public debates. Also, their higher risk of severe COVID-19 disease progression as well as other pandemic-related stressors and restrictions might have impacted how older adults perceive their own aging. In this study, it was examined to which extent middle-aged and older adults' personal and general VoA changed due to the pandemic by distinguishing between normative age-graded change across multiple measurement occasions and potentially pandemic-specific history-graded change. Multiple VoA indicators (personal VoA: attitude toward own aging, subjective age, awareness of age-related change [gains and losses]; general VoA: domain-specific age stereotypes) of 423 German adults aged 40 years and older were assessed across three prepandemic measurement occasions (2012, 2015, and 2017) and one occasion after the pandemic's outbreak (summer 2020). Normative age-graded changes and pandemic-specific changes were estimated and compared using longitudinal multilevel regression analyses. Both perceived age-related gains and age-related losses decreased between 2012 and 2017, but increased thereafter between 2017 and 2020. Further, the overall change trend toward less positive attitude toward own aging slowed down from 2017 to 2020. There was also a slight trend toward younger subjective ages from 2017 to 2020. For most age stereotypes, pandemic-specific trends indicated a shift toward more negative stereotypes. These findings suggest that pandemic-specific changes in VoA are multidirectional, comprising perceptions of both losses and gains. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

Subjective age and verbal fluency among middle aged and older adults: A meta-analysis of five cohorts

OBJECTIVES

This study aimed to examine the relation between subjective age and verbal fluency in five large samples of older adults to advance knowledge on the role of subjective age in a complex cognitive function that is an intermediate marker of cognitive impairment and dementia risk.

METHODS

Participants (N > 27,000), aged 32 to 99 years old, predominantly white, were from the Wisconsin Longitudinal Study Graduate (WLSG) and Siblings (WLSS) samples, the Health and Retirement Study (HRS), the Midlife in the United States Study (MIDUS), and the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing (ELSA). They provided complete data on subjective age, demographic factors and verbal fluency. Estimates from each sample were combined in a meta-analysis.

RESULTS

Across each of the five samples and in the meta-analysis, an older subjective age was related to lower performance on the verbal fluency task. This association was independent of chronological age and was not moderated by age, sex, nor education. The difference in fluency between individuals with an older and younger subjective age ranged from d = 0.09 to d = 0.37 across the five samples.

CONCLUSIONS

This study found replicable evidence for an association between an older subjective age and lower verbal fluency, extending knowledge about an intermediate marker of cognitive function.