The Relationship Between Age Stereotypes with Psychological Well-being and Health-Promoting Lifestyle: The Mediating Role of Awareness of Age-Related Changes

The present study aims to investigate two established indicators addressing subjective aging (age stereotypes, representing general subjective aging indicator, and awareness of age-related changes, representing personal subjective aging indicator) and their relationship with a psychological well-being and a health-promoting lifestyle of the older adults. This is correlational study with a structural equation modeling (SEM). The analytical sample included older adults 60 years and older living in the Iranian province of Kermanshah in 2022; 360 people (175 men and 185 women) were selected by means of convenience sampling. Participants completed Kornadt and Rothermund age stereotypes questionnaires, kaspar et al.'s awareness of age-related changes, Ryff 's psychological well-being, and Walker et al.'s health-promoting lifestyle questionnaires. The collected data were statistically analyzed by SPSS_26 and Lisrel 8.8 software. The research results showed that the hypothesized model of this research has a good fit in the studied sample. Also, the results showed that age stereotypes are related to health-promoting lifestyle and psychological well-being only through AARC_losses. The findings emphasize the importance of the subjective aging and its relationship with physical and psychological health. Promoting successful aging in aging societies has become increasingly important. Positive subjective aging may contribute to physical and mental health in older adults, and overcoming negative subjective aging through change at the social and individual level may help promote successful aging.
Age stereotypes are defined as socially shared beliefs about the aging process and about older people as a group (Worm et al., 2017). Hence, age stereotypes are individual cognitive representations of the aging process and older people in general. which are widely established in a given culture. Research shows that age stereotypes are context-specific, and therefore should be conceptualized using a domain-specific approach (Kornadt & Rothermund, 2011). Unlike age stereotypes, which are general and strongly influenced by societal perspectives. It is about aging and targets older people as a group, people also have their own personal experiences of ageing, for example awareness of age-related changes.
 
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