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Far from each of us, the age indicated in the passport exactly matches how we feel. And almost always this difference is of great importance to us – often it determines our goals, plans and lifestyle. But what affects our feelings?
When I was 12, I felt quite grown up. At 22, after my divorce, I aged dramatically. At the age of 27, she was deeply experiencing a midlife crisis. Then at 30, believing myself to be too young and inexperienced, I was about to die of despair when some sass, whom I told how old I was, mumbled back: “Really? And I thought you were over forty…” Now, at 35, I look younger, perhaps because my 16-year-old daughter is regularly mistaken for my younger sister. My father is full of life, energy, plans and hopes. And sometimes I joke with him about this, because his interests are more in line with a 30-year-old man: my dad is younger than me now!
Interesting: how old we feel ourselves can differ significantly from our chronological (passport) age, biological (age of our body), social (age of our achievements) … Why is this happening?
Marina, 58 years old, guide-interpreter, subjective age 39 years
“Who is this?” Of course, this respectable lady in the mirror cannot be me! Every time I meet my reflection, I feel that I am literally thrown into old age. I perceive myself in a completely different way, but people constantly remind me of my age: someone will give up their place in the subway, someone will refuse to call by name – they will demand a patronymic …
But at the same time, I often feel almost like a teenager! I understand that a miniskirt at my age is not very appropriate, but sometimes I really want to wear it … In my heart I feel that many possibilities are open to me and my tastes and hobbies can still change radically. When my peers say: “At our age it’s already too late to become different!”, It jars me, and I hope that until the end of my days I will move forward, develop!
As we grow older we get younger
From the point of view of psychoanalysis, this is not surprising, because our unconscious ignores time, which is why we often experience what happened to us once, as very recent events. In 1972, American researcher Robert Kastenbaum developed a test that allows you to determine the subjective (or psychological) age.
For this, he chose four criteria: self-awareness, appearance, interests and a measure of vitality. Around the same time, Soviet psychologist Alexander Kronik and sociologist Yevgeny Golovakha proposed measuring the subjective sense of age by how saturated the past and future are for us with significant events. If there are more such events in the past, we feel older than our years, and if our plans outweigh what has been achieved, we feel younger.
“The paradox of psychological age is, says Yevgeny Golovakha, that every year the future does not shrink, but opens up more and more prospects for personal development. And most of us feel younger than what the passport numbers indicate.” Only pessimists and young people (under 20) feel older than their real age. “Those who are between 20 and 30 are underestimated by about 4 years, 30-40 by 6 years, 40-50 by 7-8 years,” continues Evgeniy Golovakha. The same trend in Europe.
“After 40, the difference can reach 10-15 years,” agrees French sociologist Denis Guyot. “Moreover, those over 60 may feel 30 or more years younger than their actual age. Incredibly, at 65 they feel like 35!” “True, in Russia, many of their peers, on the contrary, are aging themselves,” says Evgeny Golovakha. Fatigue, financial instability change the perspective, and it seems that the likelihood of a bright, fulfilling life is not so great.
It is also interesting that the older we get, the more the perception of time generally changes – it flies faster every year, and there comes a moment when we simply do not have time to realize and comprehend it. For a small child, a month seems like an eternity, for a fifty-year-old 10 lived years are defined by one phrase: “Wow, how time flew by …” At 85 years old, speaking of the last 25 years, in fact, we can mean both 10 and 50 years gone by!
Try this: Find out your inner age
Remedies for old age
Psychologists have studied the factors that influence our subjective age. “Love is a universal remedy for the old age of the soul,” says Lin Giles, a psychologist at Flinders University (Australia). “The more close people around us, the sharper we feel young.”
Another significant factor is our compliance (or inconsistency) with social status, which is considered natural for our age.
“In Russia or Ukraine, it is customary to get married at the age of 23-25,” explains Yevgeny Golovakha. – We compared how old married (married) and single (unmarried) people of this age feel. It turned out that those who “do not live up” to the generally accepted social bar, that is, who have not started a family, perceive themselves as younger (in 79% of cases). Those who are married are older or match their age (63%).”
This does not mean that the lag of subjective age from actual or social age is an unconditional blessing. “Social immaturity, infantilism can stand behind the feeling of one’s own youth,” says Yevgeny Golovakha. “Inadequately imagining our future, we are faced with a serious crisis, feeling that all hopes are unfulfilled, because they are not backed up by anything.”
What is your subjective (psychological) age?
Fill in the blanks with numbers:
- I feel like… years old.
- In my appearance, you can give me … years.
- I have the same interests as a person aged … years.
- In everyday life, I act like I’m … years old.
In order to find out the subjective age according to the scale of the American psychologist Robert Kastenbaum, add up the results and divide the resulting amount by 4.
Feel young despite trials
Menopause, the birth of grandchildren, an unexpected dismissal from work, the betrayal of a spouse or the death of parents … The feeling of fullness of life disappears, and we feel older. But how we react to certain events largely depends on ourselves. Optimists continue to make plans for the future, they feel younger than their years despite the experiences they have endured.
And yet, the psychological and passport age should not diverge too much, Yevgeny Golovakha believes. True youth, to which everyone aspires, is not that a person has lived and experienced little, but that he sees the future ahead of him, has a more significant prospect than everything he has already achieved. The psychological age of a person is just an arrow of scales, on one side of which is the past, and on the other is the future.
Roman, 30 years old, artist, subjective age 28 years
“When I was four years old, I demanded that my mother stop cooking breakfast: it seemed to me that I could cook porridge myself. I considered myself to be in the “camp” of adults: I preferred the company of parental friends, and I was afraid of my peers. Most of my friends are much older than me, and I don’t feel the difference in age with my girlfriend, who is 44. I felt great until I was 21 years old – entered the third decade. And everything has changed, now the panic arises every year with the approach of my birthday. I’m 30, but I don’t think I’ll really understand it until a few years from now. I can imagine how my friends will say to me: “Listen, are you really 30 soon?”, Although in fact I will be much older … “