IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/oup/geronb/v76y2021i5p858-870..html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Within- and Between-Person Relationships Among Health, Awareness of Aging, and Control Beliefs: A Microlongitudinal Study
[Personal control and aging: How beliefs and expectations matter]

Author

Listed:
  • Shenghao Zhang
  • Shevaun D Neupert
  • Amit Shrira

Abstract

ObjectiveControl beliefs are bidirectionally related to physical and cognitive health, and control beliefs are associated with awareness of aging (subjective age and awareness of age-related change [AARC]), but it is unclear how these processes unfold within persons over time. We examine these relationships from both between- and within-person perspectives.Methods: Older adults (n = 116) ranging in age from 60 to 90 (M = 64.71) completed a 9-day daily diary study online, resulting in 743 total days. Participants reported their sociodemographic characteristics on Day 1 and physical symptoms, memory failures, felt age, daily AARC gain and loss experiences, and control beliefs on Days 2–9.ResultsWithin-person deviations from one’s typical awareness of aging (AARC losses, AARC gains, and subjective age) were associated with fluctuations in control beliefs. Multilevel mediation results showed that between-person AARC losses mediated the relationship between health (both physical symptoms and memory failures) and control beliefs, whereas both within- and between-person control beliefs mediated the relationship between physical health and AARC losses. Model fit comparisons showed that models with control beliefs mediating health and awareness of aging fit better than models with awareness of aging mediating health and control beliefs.DiscussionOur findings suggest that within-person physical and cognitive health indicators were associated with awareness of aging indirectly through control beliefs. Although between-person differences in AARC losses may link health and control beliefs, our results suggest that a more consistent pattern involves control beliefs linking health and awareness of aging.

Suggested Citation

  • Shenghao Zhang & Shevaun D Neupert & Amit Shrira, 2021. "Within- and Between-Person Relationships Among Health, Awareness of Aging, and Control Beliefs: A Microlongitudinal Study [Personal control and aging: How beliefs and expectations matter]," The Journals of Gerontology: Series B, The Gerontological Society of America, vol. 76(5), pages 858-870.
    • Handle: RePEc:oup:geronb:v:76:y:2021:i:5:p:858-870.
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1093/geronb/gbaa180
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:oup:geronb:v:76:y:2021:i:5:p:858-870.. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Oxford University Press (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://academic.oup.com/psychsocgerontology .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.