Subjective Age in Proximal and Distal Contexts: Both Momentary Pain and Long–Term Trajectories of Physical Health Shape Daily Dynamics of Subjective Age

Subjective age –– the age people feel –– fluctuates considerably across days and even within days. We investigated how subjective age fluctuations are intertwined with experiences of momentary pain and how the within–person couplings of subjective age and pain are shaped by long–term changes in physical health using data from 139 older individuals participating in the Berlin Aging Study II (age 67 to 88, 41.3% women). After providing long-term longitudinal data across on average 7 years on central facets of physical health (pain severity, pain interference, chronic diseases) participants completed repeated daily-life assessments of subjective age and pain up to six times per day across one full week. Results from Dynamic Structural Equation Models that combine latent change score models with location scale models of intraindividual variability indicate that in moments when individuals report pain that is 10 points above their overall average pain (on a scale from 0 = no pain to 100 = most intense pain), they feel a third of a year older than their average subjective age. Individuals who experienced steeper long–term 7-year increases in both pain severity and pain interference exhibited a stronger subjective age reactivity to momentary pain (i.e., within-person couplings of elevated momentary pain with an older subjective age) and greater subjective age systemic noise (i.e., non–pain related momentary fluctuations in subjective age). Our findings suggest that moment-to-moment fluctuations in older adults’ subjective age in daily life are shaped by moment-to-moment fluctuations in pain and cumulative long–term physical health trajectories.