The Relationship Between Subjective Age and Some Sociodemographic Characteristics, Personality Traits and Health

Cilj istraživanja bio je ispitati tri pokazatelja subjektivne dobi(kognitivnu, komparativnu i željenu), njihove međusobnepovezanosti te odnos s nekim sociodemografskim značajkama,osobinama ličnosti iz petofaktorskoga modela i samoprocjenomzdravlja. U istraživanju je sudjelovalo 230 osoba od 20 do 72godine iz nekoliko hrvatskih gradova. Relevantni konstruktimjereni su IPIP50 upitnikom ličnosti te pitanjima koja se odnosena aspekte subjektivne dobi i samoprocjenu zdravlja. Pokazalose da su kognitivna i željena dob sudionika istraživanja bile uprosjeku značajno niže od kronološke, a većina se osjećalamlađima i u odnosu na pripadnike vlastite dobne skupine. Sporastom dobi rasla je i razlika između pokazatelja subjektivne ikronološke dobi. Nisu utvrđene značajne rodne razlike usubjektivnoj dobi, kao ni značajna povezanost obrazovanja smjerama subjektivne dobi. Suprotno očekivanjima, rezultatihijerarhijskih regresijskih analiza pokazali su da su osobineličnosti iz petofaktorskoga modela bolji prediktori subjektivnedobi u odnosu na samoprocjenu zdravlja. Međutim, i osobineličnosti i zdravlje objasnili su, nakon kontrole kronološke dobi,malu proporciju varijance triju pokazatelja subjektivne dobi.The aim of this study was to examine three indicators ofsubjective age (cognitive, comparative and ideal age), theirinter-correlations and their relationships with somesociodemographic characteristics, the Big-Five personalitytraits, and self-rated health. 230 subjects aged 20 to 72years, from several Croatian cities, participated in the study.The relevant constructs were measured by IPIP50 personalityquestionnaire, and by questions referring to different aspectsof subjective age and self-rated health. The results haveshown that cognitive and ideal ages of participants were onaverage significantly lower than their chronological age, andthe majority of them felt younger compared to their agegroup. With an increase in chronological age, thediscrepancy between subjective age indicators andchronological age rose. Furthermore, there were nosignificant gender differences in subjective age, neither wasa significant correlation of education with measures ofsubjective age found. Contrary to expectations, the results ofhierarchical regression analysis showed that the Big-Fivepersonality traits are better predictors of subjective age thanself-rated health. However, personality traits, as well as self--rated health, after controlling for chronological age,explained only a small proportion of variance of the threeindicators of subjective age