An Interpersonal Approach to Subjective Views of Aging

The notion of subjective views of aging (VoA) has been consistently demonstrated as a superordinate construct consisting of two main groups of constructs: general VoA and personal VoA. While general VoA focus on societal and individual beliefs and attitudes regarding aging and old people, personal VoA refer to the individual’s experiences of their own aging process and the state of being old. Personal VoA incorporate additional sub-constructs: subjective age, self-perceptions of aging, and awareness of age-related changes. Although there are studies showing evidence of the influence of interpersonal and social context on general VoA and personal VoA, the literature has yet to be reviewed and organised conceptually. This chapter will start with examining the influence of interpersonal and social context on VoA in the intimate context of couples and families, including the impact of care-burden, and will go on to examine its influence in wider societal contexts including care-settings and life-transitions. We suggest that VoA are essentially interpersonal and propose a parsimonious framework for conceptualizing the influence of social context on VoA, comprising a 2 × 2 matrix of self/other interactions. Finally, we briefly describe how this framework can be useful in understanding the influence of intergenerational encounters on VoA.