Physical Health And Attitudes Toward Aging And Its Intervention In Older Adults:the Chain Mediating Role Of Subjective Age And Self-Worth

In today’s society,population aging has become a common phenomenon,and China has entered a deep aging society four years ahead of schedule.How to age successfully has become an urgent need,and healthy aging is the foundation of successful aging.As an important variable to predict the subjective well-being and life satisfaction of the elderly,attitude toward aging is of great significance to the realization of healthy aging strategy.Attitudes toward aging are influenced by many factors,including personal factors and social factors.Previous studies have focused more on social factors and less on individual factors.This study consisted of three parts: the pre-study used the literature analysis method and the questionnaire survey method to investigate whether physical health is an important influencing factor of attitude toward aging,and to establish a theoretical and empirical basis for exploring the relationship between the two.In Study 1,the relationship between physical health and attitudes toward aging was investigated using questionnaires,and the chain mediating role of subjective age and sense of self-worth was further investigated.Physical health is one of the most important elements for older adults and often influences individuals’ subjective age and self-worth.Poor physical health brings explicit psychological cues of aging to older adults,causing them to closely associate poor physical health with negative attitudes toward aging,exacerbating their negative stereotypes of aging.In addition,good health is usually accompanied by a positive sense of value,and these older adults have a higher degree of autonomy in their daily activities,and thus have a higher self-worth and a more positive attitude toward aging;whereas older adults with poor health tend to be incompetent and have a higher sense of uselessness,and are easily to develop a negative attitude toward aging.The stereotype that older people are "old but useless" suggests that there may be an inherent potential association between subjective age and self-worth,which means that the older the subjective age,the lower the self-worth of older people,and the more likely they are to develop negative attitudes toward aging.Therefore,there may be a recursive relationship between the above two mediating variables.In addition,according to the ABC structural theory of attitudes,a person’s attitude will be revealed through their cognitive,affective and behavioral tendencies,where the process of attitude formation based on cognitive information processing is: cognitive → affective →behavioral tendencies.In this study,a three-stage visualization study was conducted using subjective age,self-worth and attitudes toward aging,to further explore whether there is a chain mediating effect between physical health and these three variables.Study2 used a mixed experimental design of 4(grouping: low physical health score-low subjective age score,low physical health score-high subjective age score,high physical health score-low subjective age score,high physical health score-high subjective age score)× 2(initiation: post-initiation test,pre-initiation test).The subjects in Study 1were cross-grouped for physical health and subjective age,and the self-worth and attitude toward aging of the selected subjects in Study 1 were used as pre-tests,while the self-worth and attitude toward aging measured after the self-worth initiation were used as post-tests to explore the effects of this initiation method on the self-worth and attitude toward aging of older adults using a recall writing task.We attempted to further validate the influence mechanism path of Study 1 and also provide possible methods for the improvement of attitude toward aging.According to previous studies,the increase in the level of self-worth as a positive psychological resource is very important to promote the formation of positive aging attitudes in older adults,and it is also helpful to break the stereotype of "old but useless" and to break the link between high subjective age and low self-worth.In addition,the results of Study 1 revealed that the model mediated by self-worth was more stable than the model mediated by subjective age,and the contribution of self-worth to the chain mediation was greater.Therefore,Study 2attempts to build on the practical application of the role of the chain mediator in Study 1to explore whether an intervention on self-worth,a positive psychological resource,can be effective in helping older adults develop positive attitudes toward aging and thus achieve the goal of healthy aging.The results of the study are as follows: 1)Physical health is one of the most important influencing factors of attitude toward aging;2)Physical health and self-worth are positively related to attitude toward aging,the better the physical health and the higher the self-worth,the older people tend to have positive attitude toward aging;subjective age is negatively related to attitude toward aging,the older people with higher subjective age have more negative attitude toward aging;3)Physical health can influence attitude toward aging through the mediation of subjective age and self-worth;it can also indirectly influence attitude toward aging through the chain mediation of subjective age and self-worth;4)The recall writing tasks as a method of self-worth initiation can effectively improve older adults’ self-worth,and also indirectly promote positive changes in older adults’ attitude toward aging.This study found that physical health of older adults directly affects their attitudes toward aging,but also indirectly through the mediation of subjective age or self-worth or a chain of both.Specifically,a decline in physical health does not necessarily lead to a decline in attitudes toward aging,but may still promote an improvement in attitudes toward aging if timely interventions are made for subjective age or self-worth.The study also further verified that the improvement of older adults’ self-worth can effectively help them form positive attitudes toward aging,which is also beneficial for improving the level of well-being,maintaining a healthy psychological state,and achieving healthy aging.Therefore,it is very important to pay attention to improving the self-worth in the daily life of older adults for their psychological health and successful aging.