S. Staats, YOUTHFUL AND OLDER BIASES AS SPECIAL CASES OF A SELF-AGE OPTIMIZATIONBIAS, International journal of aging & human development, 43(4), 1996, pp. 267-276
Two concepts of subjective age are measured for two cohorts (college s
tudents and older persons with an age range of 50 to 91 years). Functi
onal age (Kastenbaum ct al., 1972 Ages-of-Me Scale [1]) shows the typi
cal youthful bias for the older cohort. An older bias is shown for the
Best/Ideal Age by the older cohort in comparison to the younger cohor
t. Taken together, the youthful bias, being like someone of younger ch
ronological age, and the bias of selecting a relatively older age as b
est represents a ''Self Age Optimization Bias.'' A sub-set of Best Age
items dealing with work and career are identified for gender and coho
rt comparisons.