Positive attitudes towards ageing can improve health and cognitive function in later life, with new research showing that a significant proportion of older adults actually get better over time — challenging the widespread assumption that decline is inevitable.
The study
Researchers from the Yale School of Public Health, led by Professor Becca Levy and Dr Martin Slade, tracked more than 11,000 people aged between 50 and 99 over a period of up to 12 years. They found that those who held more positive views about growing older performed better on measures of walking speed, memory and maths than those with negative attitudes. Remarkably, 44% of participants showed measurable improvements in walking speed and cognition over an average eight-year follow-up — and people who began the study with a positive outlook were significantly more likely to be among that improving group.
Levy, who has spent decades studying age beliefs and their biological consequences, admitted she was surprised by the scale of the effect. “Many people have examples in their own lives or can point to people that do show improvement in later life, but we tend to classify them as exceptions or exemplars,” she said. The study suggests such improvements are far from exceptional.
To measure attitudes, the researchers used the Philadelphia Geriatric Center Morale Scale, which asks respondents to rate statements such as “The older I get, the more useless I feel” and “I am as happy now as I was when I was younger”. Levy has also asked participants to list five common words or phrases they associate with ageing. “In at least the United States, often they’re negative beliefs that come up pretty soon, pretty early, but most people have those positive views,” she said. “Usually, by the time they get to the fifth one, often there is something positive.”
The psychology of ageing
The mechanism linking a positive attitude to better health is increasingly well understood. Levy’s “stereotype embodiment theory” proposes that age stereotypes absorbed from culture — through media, advertising and everyday language — become self-relevant and can have direct biological consequences. Negative beliefs about ageing can become internalised, affecting everything from cardiovascular response to cognitive performance.
Professor Julia Lappin, a clinical psychiatrist at the University of New South Wales and Neuroscience Research Australia, said a positive mindset at any stage of life encourages behaviours that protect physical health. “In being positive, with that comes behaviours that contribute to better physical health,” she said. “The term that we use in optimising brain ageing is that you stay cognitively, physically and socially active throughout your life.” She gave the example of communities where active older people create a “keeping up with the Joneses” effect: “You see that that person down the road, he’s 93, he still walks down to the beach every day, and you think, ‘Well, I’m 92 I should be able to do it.’”
Positive attitudes also shape what people do when health problems arise. Professor Kaarin Anstey, a psychologist and director of the UNSW Ageing Futures Institute, said higher expectations lead to proactive behaviour. “As an example, if you had a sore hip, you could either say, ‘Oh, that’s just a part of ageing, it’s just I’m getting older,’ or you could say, ‘I’m going to go do something about that.’” That action — visiting a physiotherapist or exercising more — becomes a health-improving behaviour driven by a positive outlook.
Professor Velandai Srikanth, director of the National Centre for Healthy Ageing, stressed that ageing itself is not a disease. “Age is not disease; age is just time,” he said. “People often assume that just getting older means you’re going to get dementia, which is not true – ageing is not equal to having dementia.”
Research in Britain has found that successful ageing is understood multidimensionally by older adults themselves: it encompasses contentment, social connection and the ability to pursue interests, rather than being defined solely by physical functioning. Positive psychological factors — including a belief in a just world, a sense of coherence, and overall well-being — are associated with more positive attitudes towards ageing among UK adults aged 50 and over. Conversely, being a carer for someone with dementia is linked to more negative views.
Expert perspectives
Professor Brian Draper, a psychiatrist at UNSW who describes himself as “semi-retired”, said the later years can be the happiest. “The happiest time of life is as you get older,” he said, noting that depression rates in Australia are lowest in people aged 65 to 85, though they do increase significantly after 85. “Generally speaking, retirement leads to improvement in most parameters of people’s lives,” he added. While the body shows wear and tear over time, he said, “It can happen quite late in life, much later than most people realise.”
This phenomenon — a well-being paradox — has been observed in the UK as well: although advancing age is associated with physical and cognitive decline, overall well-being is consistently higher in later life than among younger or middle-aged adults, across evaluative, affective and eudemonic measures. The International Longevity Centre reports that most older people in the UK lead fulfilled and active lives with high levels of social interaction, though risks of disability, bereavement and material deprivation increase for the very old.
Associate Professor Rod McKay, a psychiatrist from the University of Notre Dame, pointed to the persistence of age discrimination in employment despite an ageing population and later retirement ages. The results of Levy’s study, he suggested, indicate that employers may be missing out on applicants who are not only at their peak but have the capacity to improve further.
Societal ageism
While a positive personal attitude matters, resisting the ageism embedded in society is a different battle. Ageism has been described as one of the last socially acceptable prejudices, perpetuated by media, advertising and everyday language — the casual “senior moment” or the dominance of anti-ageing creams and decline-focused narratives. In the UK, pessimism about ageing has been described as chronic, fuelled by industries that profit from fear of getting older.
Srikanth experienced this stigma firsthand after turning 60. “Somebody said: ‘So when are you going to retire?’” he recalled. The comment shocked him, coming at a time when he was directing a major research centre and at the height of his career. “We have got an ageing population, we’ve got people retiring later, yet our discrimination in terms of age and employment hasn’t seemingly changed,” McKay said.
Combating ageism means recognising that older people are diverse and that positive age beliefs are modifiable — through public health campaigns, policy changes and individual reflection. Levy has testified before the US Senate on the adverse effects of ageism and contributed to Supreme Court briefs against age discrimination, underscoring the societal stakes.
Research from Nottingham Trent University exploring lived experiences of older adults in England highlights the importance of relationships, meaningful engagement and giving back. Age UK notes that older people deserve a broad range of accessible and affordable social opportunities, because social engagement is vital for cognitive function, mental health and combating loneliness.
Draper summed up the realistic optimism that the research supports: “I think that’s an important aspect of it all; you can continue to function and enjoy life, and mentally and physically function well for quite a long time.”