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01-06-2016 | Review Article

How aging affects self-reports

Authors: Bärbel Knäuper, Kimberly Carrière, Melodie Chamandy, Zhen Xu, Norbert Schwarz, Natalie O. Rosen

Published in: European Journal of Ageing | Issue 2/2016

Abstract

A lot of information used in aging research relies on self-reports. Surveys or questionnaires are used to assess quality of life, attitudes toward aging, experiences of aging, subjective well-being, symptomatology, health behaviors, financial information, medication adherence, etc. Growing evidence suggests that older and younger respondents are differentially affected by questionnaire features and the cognitive tasks that question answering pose. This research has shown that age-related changes in cognitive and communicative functioning can lead to age-related differences in self-reports that are erroneously interpreted as real age differences in attitudes and behaviors. The current review highlights how the processes underlying respondents’ self-report change as a function of respondents’ age; it updates our previous reviews of this literature.

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Title: How aging affects self-reports
Authors: Bärbel Knäuper
Kimberly Carrière
Melodie Chamandy
Zhen Xu
Norbert Schwarz
Natalie O. Rosen
Publication date: 01-06-2016
Publisher: Springer Netherlands
Published in: European Journal of Ageing / Issue 2/2016
Print ISSN: 1613-9372
Electronic ISSN: 1613-9380
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10433-016-0369-0

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