Growing older: Do you feel younger than your age?

Formerly, the age-determined way of living will see you transitioning from young girl to mother and grandmother. Nowadays, the demarcation is less obvious as age is no longer as significant and the roles are not as well defined as before. We can be 40 years old and live as if we were 25, or be 60 and feel 50. Globally, everybody thinks they are 10 years younger. This phenomenon is not new, but is increasing in scale. As the sociologist Jean-Claude Kaufmann explains, “we moved from a society where the individual was defined by a social role, centered by institutions and rites, with an already written life path, from a society where we try to define ourselves, where the way we look at ourselves is more important than how others see us.”

In marketing, this subjective age is known as the cognitive age. It corresponds to the age that people feel they are. This can be independent of the person’s real age and her physical state. In fact, the cognitive age is connected to an individual’s mental posture. According to Frédéric Serrière, specialist in the Senior Group, “it depends essentially on the value system – what is important in my life? But also faiths, expectations of aging and the stages of life – how am I going to tackle the death of my parents? The departure of my child? ” His last study shows that from 20 years old, the difference increases between the cognitive age and the chronological age, with a stronger growth between 50 and 60 years (around 10 years less). Beyond 62 years, the gap decreases.

“It is the beginning of the acceptance of aging,” pursues Frédéric Serrière. “This feeling of being younger varies, of course, from a person to another one. One thing is certain though, the superior occupational category feels this more than other categories.” Nevertheless, the study led by Dove, published during the promotion of their new range of anti aging products, is eloquent: 87 % of the women from 50 to 64 years old feel they are too young to feel old.

But in the end, this young-old dichotomy is just a way to put people in a box. Chantal Laurence, psychotherapist, assumes, “I am young in my way of behaving, to think, to meet, to get dressed. I have the same energy, the same fighting spirit as before. Yes, I feel out of step with my age, but by no means with me or with the life I lead.” All these women don’t want to ‘feel younger’ or ‘seem younger’, they just try to be in accordance with themselves. Even if it means bearing more or less the other people’s opinion.

Marie Le Marois

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Testimony: “I do not see myself the way others do.

Expert’s opinion: “We retain a youth that others do not want to see.”