Psychological Predictors and Consequences of Hearing Health Behaviors in Older Adults

Introduction: Hearing loss is a common chronic condition affecting older adults in Western populations [1, 2]. Even if older adults could benefit from hearing aid use, they are reluctant to wear them [1]. The purpose of the present study was twofold: a) to examine whether older adults’ implicit theories regarding the modifiability of abilities in general would predict their hearing health behaviors; and (b) to assess consequences of these behaviors on subjective aging. Methods: One hundred and sixty-three older adults (Mean age = 68.62, SD = 5.40) completed, among other questionnaires, questions assessing their implicit theories of ability (i.e., seeing general abilities as fixed vs. improvable with effort [3]) and their subjective age (i.e., felt age, do age, look age, and interest age [4]). They also reported their perceptions of the benefits of various hearing health behaviors for slowing the effects of aging (i.e., getting their hearing tested and using hearing aids) as well as their intentions to engage in those behaviors. Results: We found that the more older people considered that abilities are alterable, the more they perceived hearing health behaviors as being beneficial, which in turn increased their intentions to engage in these behaviors. Also, the greater their intentions, the younger subjective age they reported. Key conclusions: These relationships between implicit theories, hearing health behaviors, and subjective age are particularly important to take into account. Indeed, neglecting hearing problems and experiencing an older subjective age may have detrimental health-related outcomes over time [5, 6]. 1. Feder, K., Michaud, D., Ramage-Morin, P., McNamee, J., & Beauregard, Y. (2015). Prevalence of hearing loss among Canadians aged 20 to 79: Audiometric results from the 2012/2013 Canadian Health Measures Survey. Health Reports, 26(7), 18-25. 2. Lin, F. R., Thorpe, R., Gordon-Salant, S., & Ferrucci, L. (2011). Hearing loss prevalence and risk factors among older adults in the United States. The Journals of Gerontology, Series A: Biological Sciences and Medical Sciences, 66(5), 582-590. doi: doi:10.1093/gerona/glr002 3. Dweck, C. S. (1999). Self-theories: Their role in motivation, personality, and development. Philadephia, PA: Psychology Press. 4. Kastenbaum, R., Derbin, V., Sabatini, P., & Artt, S. (1972). “The ages of me”: Toward personal and interpersonal definitions of functional aging. The International Journal of Aging and Human Development, 3(2), 197-211. 5. Bainbridge, K. E., & Wallhagen, M. I. (2014). Hearing loss in an aging American population: Extent, impact, and management. Annual Review of Public Health, 35, 139-152. doi: 10.1146/annurev-publhealth-032013-182510 6. Kotter-Grühn, D., Kornadt, A. E., & Stephan, Y. (2015). Looking beyond chronological age: Current knowledge and future directions in the study of subjective age. Gerontology, 62(1), 86-93. doi: 10.1159/00043867