Taking an age-period-cohort perspective to assess changes in the incidence of self-perceptions of aging over time

Self-perceptions of aging (SPA) are defined as an evaluation of one's own aging. SPA can be positive (e.g., perceiving no change or improvement with age) or negative (e.g., perceived self-decline with age). We disentangle age, period, and cohort effects (e.g., attributed to a) individual differences associated with the passage of one's chronological age, b) circumstances affecting all in the same way, or c) circumstances differentially affecting groups of people born at a particular time, respectively) associated with changes in SPA over time. We relied on data from the Health and Retirement Survey collected between 2008 and 2020, consisting of 42,346 observations of individuals over the age of 50. We found a decline in the incidence of positive SPA after the age of 65 and an increase in the incidence of negative SPA, starting at 50. The effects of age on the incidence of negative and positive SPA varied somewhat across gender and ethnicity. We identified a strong linear trend suggesting a decline in negative SPA over time for Whites and Latinos. We also found a slight non-linear cohort effect in cohorts of Black men born between 1950 and 1955 and women born after 1955, with a higher relative risk of reporting negative SPA compared to other cohorts. For positive SPA, we did not identify linear or non-linear period or cohort effects. Clinically, the findings point to the susceptibility of older persons to lesser positive SPA and more negative SPA with age, thus highlighting a need for differential interventions.