Attitudes toward one's own aging: A question of age or a question of resources?

Recent studies have demonstrated that positive and negative stereotypes and attitudes toward age and aging may have substantial effects on the longterm development of cognitive and physical performance in old age. Relatively little is known to which degree attitudes toward one's own aging depend on (a) the current level of individual resources, (b) changes in the level of individual resources, or (c) the increasing age of older persons. The present study examined the relations between individual physical, mental, and cognitive resources and the attitudes toward one's own aging. The study was conducted with N=500 participants of the Interdisciplinary Longitudinal Study of Adult Development (ILSE) born between 1930 and 1932 (age: M=63.0, SD=0.9 at T1 and M=66.9, SD=0.9 at T2). The results indicate that the attitudes toward one's own aging (a) become more negative with increasing age, (b) most strongly depend on the available resources, (c) changes in level of resources contribute to the prediction of the attitudes toward one's own aging, and (d) age acts more as a reinforcing factor on the relation between resources and attitudes than as an independent factor on the attitudes toward one's own aging.