Older adults’ subjective aging perceptions, mentalization, and social relationships: a micro-longitudinal study

Abstract

Objectives

Social relationships are associated with various positive physical, psychological, and emotional outcomes in older adults. In line with the growing understanding of the role of subjective views of aging (VoA) for older adults’ quality of life, the current work examines how daily fluctuations in VoA affect social relationships. Moreover, as the ability to mentalize others’ states of mind (i.e. Theory of Mind) considerably enhances such relationships, this study assesses whether mentalization abilities mediate the VoA-social relationships link.

Method

Eighty-two Israeli older adults (mean age = 73.44, SD = 8.64, range = 60–95) completed a baseline online questionnaire containing background information, and subsequently filled out daily online questionnaires assessing ageist attitudes, subjective age, mentalization abilities, and positive social relationships for 14 consecutive days.

Results

Positive VoA (reduced ageist attitudes and/or a young subjective age) were associated with enhanced mentalization and positive relationships on a given day and in time-lagged analyses. Moreover, mentalization mediated the effect of previous-day VoA on next-day positive social relationships. VoA also mediated the effect of previous-day mentalization on next-day positive social relationships.

Conclusion

The study highlights the importance of mentalization capabilities for maintaining positive VoA/social relationships and expands the understanding of underlying factors associated with meaningful and close relationships in older adults.

Keywords:

• Ageist attitudes
• diary study
• social relationships
• subjective age
• theory of mind

Acknowledgements

The authors wish to express their gratitude to Ela Cohn-Schwartz for her assistance in the statistical analyses.

Disclosure statement

The authors report that there are no competing interests to declare.

Data availability statement

Data are available at https://doi.org/10.17605/OSF.IO/AUNE9

Additional information

Funding

The author(s) reported there is no funding associated with the work featured in this article.