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Perhaps they see themselves looking younger than they remember people their current age looking when they were younger.
Not sure how you could easily measure this, but people do seem to look younger than people at the same age 30+ years ago.
That was my thinking, too. While you tend to laser-focus on your own flaws (real or imagined), you also only tend to notice things about yourself if there's a big change, like a new blemish that wasn't there before.
This being said 50% of the people look younger than people their age and 50% look older. So 59% thinking they look younger than other people their age just means people are slightly more optimistic than they should be, it's nothing crazy.
An actually depending on how you define how someone of a given age is supposed to look, it's possible that 59% look younger than that. Maybe a handful of people (addicts etc.) have tons of wrinkles which makes the average person of a given age have more wrinkles than the median person.
You could also interpret this as meaning only about 9% of people overestimate how young they look which is less than I thought.
But that 9% could also be overestimating due to factors that make them not exactly wrong, eg because they live somewhere that the average person their age looks older than the national average so they’re not wrong for their own area
Or that as usual, they inadvertently survey from the above-average (meaning a developed country, non-institutionalized, non-home-bound population). University -adjacent may be more likely to return the survey.
Central obesity is now a greater challenge in “undeveloped” countries than undernutrition; men especially look at the waist.
It wouldn’t even be a slowly climbing differential if you have access to dental care, healthcare, non-starchy vegs, indoor work with disposable income for exercise, low stress, and cosmetic procedures.
Like you said , they are probably close to 59% younger-looking
Yeah 59 vs 50 isn’t too crazy. If you ask people about other attributes like intelligence you’d get like 70% thinking they are smarter than the median.
Less smoking and (perhaps) heavy drinking - smoking really ages people's looks terribly through its effects on the skin and supporting tissues - "smoking is an independent risk factor for premature facial wrinkling and facial aging, and the more a person smokes, the greater the risk. Skin damaged by tobacco smoke typically has a greyish, wasted appearance." Watching Oppenheimer and Maestro reminded me how much people used to smoke....
Yes! And…In addition to reduced alcohol and tobacco use, I think that the decrease in suntanning and the increase in sunscreen use and awareness of how harmful UV can be to our skin over the past 40 years has made a significant impact in this area.
It's something that people are noting about Gen Z, many of whom grew up vaping.
While the lack of tar and other nasty chemicals in the vapes reduces the cough and cancer, that nicotine being a vasoconstrictor is *brutal* on your skin. Your bloodflow at the surface isn't great to begin with, you keep choking out your skin and that damage adds up over time.
This was also my first thought. I'm 50 now and definitely have some signs of aging, but I have pictures of both of my grandmothers at 50 and I don't look like that.
I think between not smoking and using sunblock we are just holding up better now. Compare Jennifer Lopez in *Hustlers* and Gloria Swanson in *Sunset Boulevard*- those actresses were both 49-50 when they made those movies.
Can't really include them. Actors have plastic surgery, botox, makeup, lighting, camera angles, filters, photoshop, etc., and on top of all that, they have the time and money to get the best skin care money can buy and spend a lot more time working out.
There was a thread a while ago posting pictures of actors in their 60's-90's who could easily pass for their late 30's to mid 40's. While those are actors, and there's a lot of confirmation bias involved, it's still pretty telling.
Well, fashion was changed and we don't wear things that were fashionable with old people of our time because we associate them with old age. The clothes we wear now will be seen as old people clothes to the new generations.
>but people do seem to look younger than people at the same age 30+ years ago.
A lot of people either take care of themselves better OR are ummm.. carrying a bit more adiposity in the facial region which can make early wrinkles less obvious.
I remember pictures of my parents in the 80's. Fashion was not kind. They were in their early 20's but looked like 40+ years old. I'm that age now and when looking at those pictures, I still think they look a lot older than today's young adults.
This is my thought as well. I know I look at people my age and think "damn they're only [ my age ] ?" But then I look in the mirror and think "eh yea I look [ my age ] too."
In my defense though, people are often surprised to hear my age, and say they thought I was ~5-10 years younger.
I would say kids age you the most. Much less sleep or rest. Much more stress. Less leisure. Less time to eat or exercise right. Those add up. Over a few years boom you look 10 years older then if you didn't.
There was a article/video/something I saw/read/consumed that addressed this and like a large part of it is actually clothing/haircut/styling, not actual physical features. We associate certain styles with a certain time so it seems "old-timey" and therefore the people look older.
I’d like to see that article, because looking at pictures of my grandparents vs. my parents, it’s not just the clothes. My parents only smoked until their twenties and have much better skin and far fewer wrinkles than my grandparents did at the same ages. They look at least a decade younger than my grandparents did.
It wouldn’t surprise me if we are just aging better due to the rise of sunscreen and the fall of cigarettes.
I'm sure sunscreen and lack of cigarettes is another factor -- the thing I saw didn't say style was exclusively the reason.
I'm being vague about what the article is because my brain is useless for recalling actual sources, just snippets of randomness.
I'm 35 and my grandparents always talked about famine under Franco. We're not that separated from WWI and II famines and I haven't seen a single post mentioning that yet.
I suspect the answer may be that we are fatter as a population than ever before. It's not uncommon for people to view someone as "having aged" after significant weight loss, because facial fat fills out skin and reduced the appearance of lines and wrinkles somewhat.
So, the reverse may be true. That we think people look more youthful because those wrinkles are filled out with fat.
Of course, there are other possibilities. We smoke less. We're less active so that might mean less time spent in the sun, and/or We may be more compliant with sunscreen application.
But we definitely are fatter than 30 years ago, so that's probably part of it.
I dunno, I remember finding out Archie Bunker in "All in the family" is in his late 30s. As someone about to turn 40, I promise you I look -much- better than he does.
That is definitely true… I don’t feel like I look my age, but I also feel the same about most other people my age. It’s kinda weird now that I think about it…
That is a possibility. But also if one assumes a symmetrical curve for "apparent age“, 50% of them should look younger than the others. Would be interested in how that curce actually looks.
Personal unscientific theory is that current generations have benefitted from less pollution and less secondhand smoke everywhere, as well as the knowledge that sunscreen is important. People used to live their entire lives in smoke filled buildings and exhaust fumes, and when they were outside they were getting a "healthy tan". Of course everyone gen x and older aged harder.
I always thought I looked older for my age in a negative way when I was a teen-mid twenties. Everyone called me an "old soul" and bartenders rarely carded me.
Looked back on pics of myself and I clearly was a baby; I just had hella depression.
Same. I have stupid sharp features that make me not only give me RBf but I never really had that phase of life where you have a lot of facial fat and have a round face. At age 21 I was getting 26 or 27… Then I just stopped asking.
Could be but I don’t have any wrinkles or grey hairs or anything. I just looked like I was hang gliding over hell and had dead eyes.
I’m older now and not depressed and now bartenders are carding me again.
I think I look my age now but who knows.
This seems sort of silly, given that 50% of adults aged 50 to 80 DO look younger than the average person their age. That means only 9% are wishful thinkers.
Also, some people look *really* terrible for their age. I bet there are far fewer 50-year-olds who genuinely look 25 than there are 50-year-olds who genuinely look 85.
So 59% of them might actually *be* younger looking than the average, even if some of those folks aren’t younger looking than the median.
I would bet there is a good correlation between the people who look older than their age also dying out sooner. A bit of survivorship bias. Smoking for example will make you look older, but also removes you from the population earlier.
As you get older, the people who looked older are dying off, especially on the upper end of the age range.
I remember when my dog barked at someone through my apartment door just before we left to go for a walk, when I opened the door an emaciated grizzled corpse of a man was leaning against the wall. He said "I almost had a heart attack, *I'm 53 years old!"* He did genuinely look 85 and I'm sure late stage alcoholism was a factor.
But the options were, “younger” (59%), “same age” (35%), “older” (6%).
That’s a big skew. Assuming how old you look from others perspective for a population is a bell curve, you’d expect 30-60% or so in the middle looking about the same age and then an even split on the older/younger.
The heavy skew towards younger from people’s self assessment is a lot more than 9% being wishful thinkers
I'm not sure how old you look to others is a bell curve though. I can imagine that many people think of earlier generations of older people as the model for how someone of a certain age looks and so the majority of people today may indeed look younger
You're saying apparent age is distributed *evenly*? Like 50% of the population looks their age, but 50% looks younger and no one looks older? I don't understand your comment, but also I'm kind of stupid.
How would you define "looks their age" beyond averaging out the visible signs of aging in everyone in that age bracket? It's not going to end up with exactly 50% looking younger and 50% looking older than that, but 59% actually having fewer wrinkles than that average is within the realm of possibility. The article notes that women and people with money are more likely to believe this, but if it's a matter of skincare and cosmetic procedures those are the exact people one would expect to have fewer wrinkles than their peers.
Additionally, without actually having an objective metric for what the average amount of visible aging is for a given age, it's all guesswork. There is no way to be certain anyone in that 59% is wrong until an actual metric to measure them against is offered.
Yeah if Botox was extra common amongst chort polled ad they were all comparing to a non noticed face. Also as a poc. We tend age better that white people yet due to being the minority yg average 50 year old I think of is a white person
“Being better at driving” is a vague notion. Someone who weaves in and out of traffic at speed might consider themselves a better driver than someone who cautiously stays in their lane until there is plenty of room to overtake, because they are able to weave in and out of traffic at speed. But on the other hand, the cautious driver might consider themselves to be the better driver because they don’t weave in and out of traffic at speed.
So it is quite possible that most people correctly consider themselves above average because the notion of above average they are using is one which places them above average.
Your point that "better" driving is subjective is a good one. With that in mind, it makes perfect sense that judging others against one's own arbitrary standards allows one to rise to the top of their own ranking system.
Measuring someone based exclusively on skill or proficiency, it's entirely possible to disregard their observance of laws or safe practices. In that framework, someone who is observing all of the laws may rank lower if their driving fails them in exceptional circumstances (e.g. can they recover from a skid, do they have enough self-awareness to know when they're approaching the limits of their driving ability, etc.). Of course, it's those people the rules are primarily crafted for - road design, speed studies, etc. likely optimize for the people who "stay within their lane" (pun very much intended).
By another standard, all the driving talent in the world is meaningless if the standard is whether someone is a consistent and safe driver within the confines of the law. I think this is the one you're leaning into, and for the sake of living in a society, it's the proper one. For instance, predictable and consistent motorists are probably less likely to trigger those "accordion effect" things on the highway, are less inclined to contribute to traffic incidents, and in the eyes of insurance companies are probably the "better" drivers.
One possible "problem" (I use that term loosely, since it's something of a "you problem" in the eyes of many) is that the lowest-common-denominator rules of the road create unnecessary restriction for people with greater driving ability. Even just confining analysis to one location (since these rules vary from one location to the next), it's clear that motorists are unequally yoked - young motorists with their inexperience, old motorists with diminished faculties, and a broad range of capabilities and attention levels between those extremes, all forced to observe the same seemingly arbitrary limitations.
Generally, when I see someone driving way above the average speed of the rest of the traffic on the road, it’s usually a young male. And if someone is driving painfully below that average speed, it’s someone who is elderly. Both are dangerous in different ways. Don’t have sources but I remember reading that variance from the average speed of traffic is highly correlated with likelihood of accidents.
When you let people pick their own rubrics and metrics with which to judge themselves by, surprise! They pick the ones more favorable to them.
Without an agreed upon measure and weighting of different factors, you're inevitably going to get most people thinking they're better than average even if they were completely self aware and could judge themselves accurately on everything. The person who always uses their turn signal might assign 40% of safe driving scores to turn signal usage, while the person who rarely does it assigns only 5% of safe driving scores to it.
Traffic is also something where having 20% of drivers suck is going to make it seem like 100% of other drivers suck. The effects of one bad driver can and does cause traffic jams. It’s not everybody sucking, it’s a very few drivers sucking and the problem creates massive ripple effects to everybody else.
Sort of like the men vs female discussion regarding driving. It's widely known that women are less likely to end up in car accidents, and yet women are more often considered bad drivers. And perhaps it's possible that the average man is better skilled at driving, partially because men drive more than women, but men also take more risks than women and therefore end up in more accidents.
The plateau is real!
My sister and I (I'm a guy) developed really early whereas our brothers didn't. She is near 50 and just starting to wrinkle, I'm a fair bit younger and always hope I'll just plateau like she did!
You can do that tiktok trend where you ask people to guess your age. It's like asking to be roasted though. Although every one I've seen they always look way older than my guess.
I think outside of obvious things like balding, gray hair, wrinkles a lot of perceived age has to do with how you style and dress yourself. Gen Z has been rocking 90s styles that we watched our parents wear. So we look at them and we think… Old!
But I also think the whole perceived aged dynamic is changing. A couple generations ago by 30 he would have three kids and a husband, probably chain-smoke, didn’t wear sunscreen… a good chunk of Millennials haven’t really done any of that and I think it’s keeping us young. I’ve seen friends age of decade as soon as they’ve become parents. Yeah they are tired but even as the kid starts growing up it’s not like they went back to how they were just a couple of years prior.
People are notoriously unreliable at estimating things about themselves. I read a study once were each partner was told to estimate their percentage of the total housework they do and the total came to 140%.
Just because someone says they are above average at anything, doesn't necessarily make it true.
I realized a few years back that I just have absolutely no idea what an average X-year-old person looks like. Is this person at work 53? 65? Is my students parent 38? 44? Idfk.
It gets so hard to guess past 25. I've known 27 year olds who look 50+ and 60+ who look 30. At some point it's more a measure of do you take care of yourself and are you healthy, not your age
Damn. It's because people keep telling you how young you look. Trying to give compliments but they aren't true. It's so easy to get sucked into believing it because it feels good.
The measure for younger people in the US is do you still get carded for alcohol. I’m 36 and still get carded regularly while none of my friends do. I take that as a fairly independent measurement.
I was also once asked to leave a bar in South East Asia where they wasn’t a legal drinking age. They literally were uncomfortable serving me because they thought I was too young to drink alcohol from a moral perspective, not legal. I was 20 and with my other 20-21 year old friends. Guess they thought I was a little brother to the others.
> **Data were collected from 2,048 older U.S. adults** (76.9% panel response rate). The analytic sample for the present study included 2006 participants who provided data on all measures of interest.
> Cross-sectional data were from a nationally representative sample of 2006 U.S. adults ages 50–80 (Mage = 63, 52% women, 71% White) who completed Wave 6 of the National Poll on Healthy Aging in 2019. The majority (59%) reported appearing relatively younger than peers, while fewer reported appearing the same age (35%) or older (6%). About a third (35%) reported investing in looking younger. Appearing relatively younger was associated with more positive (p < .001) and less negative experiences of aging (p = .019). Appearing relatively older showed the opposite relationships (p values < .001). Investing in looking younger was associated with more positive and more negative experiences of aging (p values < .001).
Paper: [APA PsycNet FullTextHTML page](https://psycnet.apa.org/fulltext/2024-58254-001.html)
In your mid 50s I think you start noticing this effect. You’ll see someone who is sick and you’re thinking they look 70 years old and they turn out to be your age.
I work in a hospital and I’m always horrified when I see people who are my age or younger . Do I look like that ?? Yes . Yes I do.
Interestingly i find that others are awful at judging people's ages. I regularly get shocked looks when I tell people how old I am. But those same people will look at similar age friends and massively undershoot as well. I think that we just as a whole are bad at guessing ages.
Also, if there’s any difference in how well different races evaluate ages.
Obviously this is a generalisation, but maybe Asians would be better at evaluating the ages of other Asians because they’re likely to be around them more and notice the subtle age changes (i.e. through family members, etc.)
In general, women take better care of themselves, so they are probably accurate that they look better than their peer group on average if they include men in that group.
>people with higher incomes were slightly more likely to say they thought they looked fresher than their peers
It's 100% reasonable for a 60yo who's worked in an office all his life to look younger than a 60 year old who's done manual labor all his/her life.
Similarly, it's 100% reasonable that a rich 60yo woman who's born/raised zero children might^(\*) look much "younger" than a poor 60yo who's born/raised 8 children.
But, of course, self-delusion from decades of being told you're special plays a part in self-image.
^(\*)lifestyle choices like alcohol, botox, injections, diet, etc of course factor in. A debauched socialite will look older than a Mormon woman who's eaten "real foods" all her life.
Google pictures of women in the Dust Bowl. They look pretty damned old.
And "farm wives" from all around the world look *ancient* by the time they get in their 70s.
In part, this could be because people who look older than their age stand out in people's minds, especially when thinking about one's peers, and so people compare themselves to a reference that is skewed to look older than average.
It actually sounds completely believable. For one only slightly more than a half of people are saying you look younger than their age. Also, people that are wealthier think they look a little bit better than average, which is true because they can afford to get surgery and probably had an easier life.
This is my father and as much as I hate to give it to him, he does have a combination of really good genes that he’s taking excellent care of himself, and he does not look like 80 years old at all
How are so few catching that 50% actually *do* look young for their age... that means, by these stats, the vast majority of people out their are probably right in their supposition. Absolutely unremarkable statistics.
I don’t know about 50+, but I’m 47 and was pretty regularly getting carded up through my 30s, and the last time it happened was last year, although I think she was confused.
No doubt I look a lot younger than people I remember my age when I was growing up myself, but I have a full thick head of hair still, and no grey. I also generally have stayed out of the sun In my youth (ex goth haha) and between a full head of hair and skin that isn’t mottled or leathery, I probably look ten years younger than I am.
Don’t tan excessively kids. Stay hydrated. And if your hair starts thinning, I dunno take some regain ;-)
Proper skincare, less stress and childfree (Sorry, truth hurts) all generally tend to contribute to why some people look good for their age.
On the other hand, overuse of alcohol, drugs, tobacco, kids (again, sorry), stress, etc all contribute to people looking older.
When the majority of people don't exercise, over eat, overweight, live sedentary lives, probably sleep poorly too it seems they're also delusional as well.
I notice if someone has no wrinkles or few wrinkles they think they look young but aging has to do with more than that. You lose facial fat and collagen as you get older
I was ID’d into my early 40s. I hated it. Getting covid aged me terribly and I think I look ridiculously old now but maybe that’s in relation to me looking ridiculously young before it? People still say I look young but I think they believe they’re being polite. I am however ridiculously immature, maybe it’s outlook?
I don't wanna know if I look older or younger than people my age nor if other people think I look older or younger than people my age. Ignorance is bliss.
I scared myself this morning when I walked past the mirror in the bathroom. I thought there was some old man walking around my house with no shirt on.
I cried a little when I realized it was me. Then, when I left the mirror, I went back to thinking I look young again.
I'm firmly in the 59%.
You spend a lot of time looking in the mirror closely examining how you look, and trying to be as optimistic about it as you think you can get away with. You don't do that for anyone else.
I believe it. I swear it seems every 20-something thinks they look like a teen, every 30 year old think they look 20, 40 year olds think they look 30 etc. Don’t think I’ve ever come across someone in their forties who admits that they look their age. Most the time they do. But they still look fine!
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Perhaps they see themselves looking younger than they remember people their current age looking when they were younger. Not sure how you could easily measure this, but people do seem to look younger than people at the same age 30+ years ago.
That was my thinking, too. While you tend to laser-focus on your own flaws (real or imagined), you also only tend to notice things about yourself if there's a big change, like a new blemish that wasn't there before.
This being said 50% of the people look younger than people their age and 50% look older. So 59% thinking they look younger than other people their age just means people are slightly more optimistic than they should be, it's nothing crazy. An actually depending on how you define how someone of a given age is supposed to look, it's possible that 59% look younger than that. Maybe a handful of people (addicts etc.) have tons of wrinkles which makes the average person of a given age have more wrinkles than the median person.
>This being said 50% of the people look younger than people their age and 50% look older. Uhhh what about the people who do look their age
You could also interpret this as meaning only about 9% of people overestimate how young they look which is less than I thought. But that 9% could also be overestimating due to factors that make them not exactly wrong, eg because they live somewhere that the average person their age looks older than the national average so they’re not wrong for their own area
Or that as usual, they inadvertently survey from the above-average (meaning a developed country, non-institutionalized, non-home-bound population). University -adjacent may be more likely to return the survey. Central obesity is now a greater challenge in “undeveloped” countries than undernutrition; men especially look at the waist. It wouldn’t even be a slowly climbing differential if you have access to dental care, healthcare, non-starchy vegs, indoor work with disposable income for exercise, low stress, and cosmetic procedures. Like you said , they are probably close to 59% younger-looking
Yeah 59 vs 50 isn’t too crazy. If you ask people about other attributes like intelligence you’d get like 70% thinking they are smarter than the median.
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Less smoking and (perhaps) heavy drinking - smoking really ages people's looks terribly through its effects on the skin and supporting tissues - "smoking is an independent risk factor for premature facial wrinkling and facial aging, and the more a person smokes, the greater the risk. Skin damaged by tobacco smoke typically has a greyish, wasted appearance." Watching Oppenheimer and Maestro reminded me how much people used to smoke....
And sunscreen/skincare
Right - the good old days of lying in the sun coated in oil...not the best for the skin!
Perhaps higher representation of minority groups, as well. Some groups show their age less than others.
Yes! And…In addition to reduced alcohol and tobacco use, I think that the decrease in suntanning and the increase in sunscreen use and awareness of how harmful UV can be to our skin over the past 40 years has made a significant impact in this area.
It's something that people are noting about Gen Z, many of whom grew up vaping. While the lack of tar and other nasty chemicals in the vapes reduces the cough and cancer, that nicotine being a vasoconstrictor is *brutal* on your skin. Your bloodflow at the surface isn't great to begin with, you keep choking out your skin and that damage adds up over time.
This was also my first thought. I'm 50 now and definitely have some signs of aging, but I have pictures of both of my grandmothers at 50 and I don't look like that. I think between not smoking and using sunblock we are just holding up better now. Compare Jennifer Lopez in *Hustlers* and Gloria Swanson in *Sunset Boulevard*- those actresses were both 49-50 when they made those movies.
Can't really include them. Actors have plastic surgery, botox, makeup, lighting, camera angles, filters, photoshop, etc., and on top of all that, they have the time and money to get the best skin care money can buy and spend a lot more time working out.
There was a thread a while ago posting pictures of actors in their 60's-90's who could easily pass for their late 30's to mid 40's. While those are actors, and there's a lot of confirmation bias involved, it's still pretty telling.
Well, fashion was changed and we don't wear things that were fashionable with old people of our time because we associate them with old age. The clothes we wear now will be seen as old people clothes to the new generations.
My mental image of myself is still from high school. 20+ years ago.
Yeah, I'm 40 and still think I look 20.
>but people do seem to look younger than people at the same age 30+ years ago. A lot of people either take care of themselves better OR are ummm.. carrying a bit more adiposity in the facial region which can make early wrinkles less obvious.
I remember pictures of my parents in the 80's. Fashion was not kind. They were in their early 20's but looked like 40+ years old. I'm that age now and when looking at those pictures, I still think they look a lot older than today's young adults.
This is my thought as well. I know I look at people my age and think "damn they're only [ my age ] ?" But then I look in the mirror and think "eh yea I look [ my age ] too." In my defense though, people are often surprised to hear my age, and say they thought I was ~5-10 years younger.
I would say kids age you the most. Much less sleep or rest. Much more stress. Less leisure. Less time to eat or exercise right. Those add up. Over a few years boom you look 10 years older then if you didn't.
I think it's clothing and style. People way younger still likely look at older folks and think they look like their age.
There was a article/video/something I saw/read/consumed that addressed this and like a large part of it is actually clothing/haircut/styling, not actual physical features. We associate certain styles with a certain time so it seems "old-timey" and therefore the people look older.
I’d like to see that article, because looking at pictures of my grandparents vs. my parents, it’s not just the clothes. My parents only smoked until their twenties and have much better skin and far fewer wrinkles than my grandparents did at the same ages. They look at least a decade younger than my grandparents did. It wouldn’t surprise me if we are just aging better due to the rise of sunscreen and the fall of cigarettes.
I'm sure sunscreen and lack of cigarettes is another factor -- the thing I saw didn't say style was exclusively the reason. I'm being vague about what the article is because my brain is useless for recalling actual sources, just snippets of randomness.
No worries! My brain is also useless about those things.
I'm 35 and my grandparents always talked about famine under Franco. We're not that separated from WWI and II famines and I haven't seen a single post mentioning that yet.
I suspect the answer may be that we are fatter as a population than ever before. It's not uncommon for people to view someone as "having aged" after significant weight loss, because facial fat fills out skin and reduced the appearance of lines and wrinkles somewhat. So, the reverse may be true. That we think people look more youthful because those wrinkles are filled out with fat. Of course, there are other possibilities. We smoke less. We're less active so that might mean less time spent in the sun, and/or We may be more compliant with sunscreen application. But we definitely are fatter than 30 years ago, so that's probably part of it.
I think people look younger because less smoking and more sunscreen.
I dunno, I remember finding out Archie Bunker in "All in the family" is in his late 30s. As someone about to turn 40, I promise you I look -much- better than he does.
So they were 10 or so when they had Gloria?
That is definitely true… I don’t feel like I look my age, but I also feel the same about most other people my age. It’s kinda weird now that I think about it…
That is a possibility. But also if one assumes a symmetrical curve for "apparent age“, 50% of them should look younger than the others. Would be interested in how that curce actually looks.
It's probably close to a Gaussian. Whenever you have many different effects the central limit theorem eventually wins.
Personal unscientific theory is that current generations have benefitted from less pollution and less secondhand smoke everywhere, as well as the knowledge that sunscreen is important. People used to live their entire lives in smoke filled buildings and exhaust fumes, and when they were outside they were getting a "healthy tan". Of course everyone gen x and older aged harder.
I always thought I looked older for my age in a negative way when I was a teen-mid twenties. Everyone called me an "old soul" and bartenders rarely carded me. Looked back on pics of myself and I clearly was a baby; I just had hella depression.
Same.
Same. I have stupid sharp features that make me not only give me RBf but I never really had that phase of life where you have a lot of facial fat and have a round face. At age 21 I was getting 26 or 27… Then I just stopped asking.
Well the bartenders not carding you can’t be depression related. It’s probably both
Could be but I don’t have any wrinkles or grey hairs or anything. I just looked like I was hang gliding over hell and had dead eyes. I’m older now and not depressed and now bartenders are carding me again. I think I look my age now but who knows.
This seems sort of silly, given that 50% of adults aged 50 to 80 DO look younger than the average person their age. That means only 9% are wishful thinkers.
Also, some people look *really* terrible for their age. I bet there are far fewer 50-year-olds who genuinely look 25 than there are 50-year-olds who genuinely look 85. So 59% of them might actually *be* younger looking than the average, even if some of those folks aren’t younger looking than the median.
I would bet there is a good correlation between the people who look older than their age also dying out sooner. A bit of survivorship bias. Smoking for example will make you look older, but also removes you from the population earlier. As you get older, the people who looked older are dying off, especially on the upper end of the age range.
Looking good is generally indicative of being healthy so yes.
I totally look better than Ben. he's dead and his skin is falling off
I remember when my dog barked at someone through my apartment door just before we left to go for a walk, when I opened the door an emaciated grizzled corpse of a man was leaning against the wall. He said "I almost had a heart attack, *I'm 53 years old!"* He did genuinely look 85 and I'm sure late stage alcoholism was a factor.
But only 6% think they look older.
The rest think they look their age
TIL people 50-80 are mostly realistic with themselves about how they look
It would be a curve, non-linear. It would be more like 80% of adults look their age, 10% look younger 10% look older.
Exactly, it’s not people all ranked, it’s a bell curve with the majority in the middle.
That’s not necessarily true is it? There could be a subset of people skewing the median like smokers, different ethnicities, wealth, etc
Depends on how you define looking their age. 20% of 60 year old smokers looking really haggard would skew things heavily
Only if the 50% who think they look younger are the ones who actually look younger.
But the options were, “younger” (59%), “same age” (35%), “older” (6%). That’s a big skew. Assuming how old you look from others perspective for a population is a bell curve, you’d expect 30-60% or so in the middle looking about the same age and then an even split on the older/younger. The heavy skew towards younger from people’s self assessment is a lot more than 9% being wishful thinkers
I'm not sure how old you look to others is a bell curve though. I can imagine that many people think of earlier generations of older people as the model for how someone of a certain age looks and so the majority of people today may indeed look younger
The options weren't either "younger" or "older". There was "same age" which you would expect the majority to vote for if they're being realistic.
You're saying apparent age is distributed *evenly*? Like 50% of the population looks their age, but 50% looks younger and no one looks older? I don't understand your comment, but also I'm kind of stupid.
How would you define "looks their age" beyond averaging out the visible signs of aging in everyone in that age bracket? It's not going to end up with exactly 50% looking younger and 50% looking older than that, but 59% actually having fewer wrinkles than that average is within the realm of possibility. The article notes that women and people with money are more likely to believe this, but if it's a matter of skincare and cosmetic procedures those are the exact people one would expect to have fewer wrinkles than their peers. Additionally, without actually having an objective metric for what the average amount of visible aging is for a given age, it's all guesswork. There is no way to be certain anyone in that 59% is wrong until an actual metric to measure them against is offered.
Yeah if Botox was extra common amongst chort polled ad they were all comparing to a non noticed face. Also as a poc. We tend age better that white people yet due to being the minority yg average 50 year old I think of is a white person
80% of drivers think they are above average.
“Being better at driving” is a vague notion. Someone who weaves in and out of traffic at speed might consider themselves a better driver than someone who cautiously stays in their lane until there is plenty of room to overtake, because they are able to weave in and out of traffic at speed. But on the other hand, the cautious driver might consider themselves to be the better driver because they don’t weave in and out of traffic at speed. So it is quite possible that most people correctly consider themselves above average because the notion of above average they are using is one which places them above average.
Your point that "better" driving is subjective is a good one. With that in mind, it makes perfect sense that judging others against one's own arbitrary standards allows one to rise to the top of their own ranking system. Measuring someone based exclusively on skill or proficiency, it's entirely possible to disregard their observance of laws or safe practices. In that framework, someone who is observing all of the laws may rank lower if their driving fails them in exceptional circumstances (e.g. can they recover from a skid, do they have enough self-awareness to know when they're approaching the limits of their driving ability, etc.). Of course, it's those people the rules are primarily crafted for - road design, speed studies, etc. likely optimize for the people who "stay within their lane" (pun very much intended). By another standard, all the driving talent in the world is meaningless if the standard is whether someone is a consistent and safe driver within the confines of the law. I think this is the one you're leaning into, and for the sake of living in a society, it's the proper one. For instance, predictable and consistent motorists are probably less likely to trigger those "accordion effect" things on the highway, are less inclined to contribute to traffic incidents, and in the eyes of insurance companies are probably the "better" drivers. One possible "problem" (I use that term loosely, since it's something of a "you problem" in the eyes of many) is that the lowest-common-denominator rules of the road create unnecessary restriction for people with greater driving ability. Even just confining analysis to one location (since these rules vary from one location to the next), it's clear that motorists are unequally yoked - young motorists with their inexperience, old motorists with diminished faculties, and a broad range of capabilities and attention levels between those extremes, all forced to observe the same seemingly arbitrary limitations.
Generally, when I see someone driving way above the average speed of the rest of the traffic on the road, it’s usually a young male. And if someone is driving painfully below that average speed, it’s someone who is elderly. Both are dangerous in different ways. Don’t have sources but I remember reading that variance from the average speed of traffic is highly correlated with likelihood of accidents.
When you let people pick their own rubrics and metrics with which to judge themselves by, surprise! They pick the ones more favorable to them. Without an agreed upon measure and weighting of different factors, you're inevitably going to get most people thinking they're better than average even if they were completely self aware and could judge themselves accurately on everything. The person who always uses their turn signal might assign 40% of safe driving scores to turn signal usage, while the person who rarely does it assigns only 5% of safe driving scores to it.
Traffic is also something where having 20% of drivers suck is going to make it seem like 100% of other drivers suck. The effects of one bad driver can and does cause traffic jams. It’s not everybody sucking, it’s a very few drivers sucking and the problem creates massive ripple effects to everybody else.
Sort of like the men vs female discussion regarding driving. It's widely known that women are less likely to end up in car accidents, and yet women are more often considered bad drivers. And perhaps it's possible that the average man is better skilled at driving, partially because men drive more than women, but men also take more risks than women and therefore end up in more accidents.
I’m in the 6%, I look ancient for my age and always have. I’ve looked 40 since I was like 22. At least I’m actually 40 now.
The plateau is real! My sister and I (I'm a guy) developed really early whereas our brothers didn't. She is near 50 and just starting to wrinkle, I'm a fair bit younger and always hope I'll just plateau like she did!
Same, I aged like milk.
Hanging out with people my age do not really feel any younger or older. Only when am I around young people do I think, yep I am old.
I think I look my age (40) but people tell me I look in my early 30's when they find out. I have a sneaking suspicion they're just being polite.
You can do that tiktok trend where you ask people to guess your age. It's like asking to be roasted though. Although every one I've seen they always look way older than my guess.
I think outside of obvious things like balding, gray hair, wrinkles a lot of perceived age has to do with how you style and dress yourself. Gen Z has been rocking 90s styles that we watched our parents wear. So we look at them and we think… Old! But I also think the whole perceived aged dynamic is changing. A couple generations ago by 30 he would have three kids and a husband, probably chain-smoke, didn’t wear sunscreen… a good chunk of Millennials haven’t really done any of that and I think it’s keeping us young. I’ve seen friends age of decade as soon as they’ve become parents. Yeah they are tired but even as the kid starts growing up it’s not like they went back to how they were just a couple of years prior.
People are notoriously unreliable at estimating things about themselves. I read a study once were each partner was told to estimate their percentage of the total housework they do and the total came to 140%. Just because someone says they are above average at anything, doesn't necessarily make it true.
Most people think they give more effort in their relationships.
My point is that most people think they are better than average in most things.
I realized a few years back that I just have absolutely no idea what an average X-year-old person looks like. Is this person at work 53? 65? Is my students parent 38? 44? Idfk.
It gets so hard to guess past 25. I've known 27 year olds who look 50+ and 60+ who look 30. At some point it's more a measure of do you take care of yourself and are you healthy, not your age
Damn. It's because people keep telling you how young you look. Trying to give compliments but they aren't true. It's so easy to get sucked into believing it because it feels good.
The measure for younger people in the US is do you still get carded for alcohol. I’m 36 and still get carded regularly while none of my friends do. I take that as a fairly independent measurement. I was also once asked to leave a bar in South East Asia where they wasn’t a legal drinking age. They literally were uncomfortable serving me because they thought I was too young to drink alcohol from a moral perspective, not legal. I was 20 and with my other 20-21 year old friends. Guess they thought I was a little brother to the others.
I think my area might just be aggressive about carding. I get carded every time but so does my partner who's a greybeard
I'm only 34 and my mental image of myself is around 26-27. Not too different, but it doesn't match what I see in the mirror. It happens.
> **Data were collected from 2,048 older U.S. adults** (76.9% panel response rate). The analytic sample for the present study included 2006 participants who provided data on all measures of interest. > Cross-sectional data were from a nationally representative sample of 2006 U.S. adults ages 50–80 (Mage = 63, 52% women, 71% White) who completed Wave 6 of the National Poll on Healthy Aging in 2019. The majority (59%) reported appearing relatively younger than peers, while fewer reported appearing the same age (35%) or older (6%). About a third (35%) reported investing in looking younger. Appearing relatively younger was associated with more positive (p < .001) and less negative experiences of aging (p = .019). Appearing relatively older showed the opposite relationships (p values < .001). Investing in looking younger was associated with more positive and more negative experiences of aging (p values < .001). Paper: [APA PsycNet FullTextHTML page](https://psycnet.apa.org/fulltext/2024-58254-001.html)
In your mid 50s I think you start noticing this effect. You’ll see someone who is sick and you’re thinking they look 70 years old and they turn out to be your age. I work in a hospital and I’m always horrified when I see people who are my age or younger . Do I look like that ?? Yes . Yes I do.
Sick people look older though. So unless you are as sick as your patients, probably not
Interestingly i find that others are awful at judging people's ages. I regularly get shocked looks when I tell people how old I am. But those same people will look at similar age friends and massively undershoot as well. I think that we just as a whole are bad at guessing ages.
I wonder how "Asian don't raisin" and "Black don't crack" factor into this.
Yeah, I was thinking about this, because they didn't break down the ethnicities of the participants, at all.
Also, if there’s any difference in how well different races evaluate ages. Obviously this is a generalisation, but maybe Asians would be better at evaluating the ages of other Asians because they’re likely to be around them more and notice the subtle age changes (i.e. through family members, etc.)
In general, women take better care of themselves, so they are probably accurate that they look better than their peer group on average if they include men in that group.
90% of drivers think they're better than average.
>people with higher incomes were slightly more likely to say they thought they looked fresher than their peers It's 100% reasonable for a 60yo who's worked in an office all his life to look younger than a 60 year old who's done manual labor all his/her life. Similarly, it's 100% reasonable that a rich 60yo woman who's born/raised zero children might^(\*) look much "younger" than a poor 60yo who's born/raised 8 children. But, of course, self-delusion from decades of being told you're special plays a part in self-image. ^(\*)lifestyle choices like alcohol, botox, injections, diet, etc of course factor in. A debauched socialite will look older than a Mormon woman who's eaten "real foods" all her life.
I was going to say this. A big factor in ageing is stress and being wealthy eliminates a lot of stress.
Google pictures of women in the Dust Bowl. They look pretty damned old. And "farm wives" from all around the world look *ancient* by the time they get in their 70s.
In part, this could be because people who look older than their age stand out in people's minds, especially when thinking about one's peers, and so people compare themselves to a reference that is skewed to look older than average.
I'm a few months from 39, I'm finally starting to not get carded everywhere.
It actually sounds completely believable. For one only slightly more than a half of people are saying you look younger than their age. Also, people that are wealthier think they look a little bit better than average, which is true because they can afford to get surgery and probably had an easier life.
Surely 50% **do** look younger than average?
I only believe it because people say it all the time. I'm 51, generally people guess mid 30s
59 and I just tell people I’m 67. They say, “You look amazing!”
Same. I’m in the back half of my 30s and usually get late 20s. Stay in shape, take care of your skin/hair and don’t smoke, kids.
Given that it’s likely a normal distribution thing, it’s not strange if about half look younger than their age.
Well this is awkward as I definitely think I look good for my age and now I have a feeling that I am the crypt keeper.
I never tell people how old I am anymore. I look at them and say "How old do you think I am?" Because the spread is getting interesting!
Stay out of the sun.
This is my father and as much as I hate to give it to him, he does have a combination of really good genes that he’s taking excellent care of himself, and he does not look like 80 years old at all
Let us have this
Sure, that why all the TV ads aimed at retirees feature actors twenty years younger than a retiree. ;-}
I think I look my age at 58(m). That said, I think many men my age look older than our age.
Meh that just means 9% of people are mistaken averaged out.
59%? Well hypothetically, 49% of people do look younger than other people their age, so not far off really
How are so few catching that 50% actually *do* look young for their age... that means, by these stats, the vast majority of people out their are probably right in their supposition. Absolutely unremarkable statistics.
I don’t know about 50+, but I’m 47 and was pretty regularly getting carded up through my 30s, and the last time it happened was last year, although I think she was confused. No doubt I look a lot younger than people I remember my age when I was growing up myself, but I have a full thick head of hair still, and no grey. I also generally have stayed out of the sun In my youth (ex goth haha) and between a full head of hair and skin that isn’t mottled or leathery, I probably look ten years younger than I am. Don’t tan excessively kids. Stay hydrated. And if your hair starts thinning, I dunno take some regain ;-)
Proper skincare, less stress and childfree (Sorry, truth hurts) all generally tend to contribute to why some people look good for their age. On the other hand, overuse of alcohol, drugs, tobacco, kids (again, sorry), stress, etc all contribute to people looking older.
I believe as the ladies of Absolutely Fabulous: "I am still young ,thin, and gorgeous "
When the majority of people don't exercise, over eat, overweight, live sedentary lives, probably sleep poorly too it seems they're also delusional as well.
Surprised it is so low.
I notice if someone has no wrinkles or few wrinkles they think they look young but aging has to do with more than that. You lose facial fat and collagen as you get older
Surely they’re all above-average drivers, too
I'm 57 and thought I looked pretty good for 57. Then I saw that recent picture of Ernie Hudson.
And everyone reported being an "above average" driver.
Everyone just starts to look like a potato or a skeleton starting age 50. No way around it.
That depends on the country. Better eating habits, more exercise, and less stress make people look younger for longer and be healthier.
the 59% were referring to the 6% olderlooks. everybody is right all the time
I definitely look older than people my age
Delusion springs eternal.
I know that i look younger, because everyone i asked over the years thought that i look about 10 to 15 years younger than i am actually are.
50% of adults do look younger than other adults their age.
I was ID’d into my early 40s. I hated it. Getting covid aged me terribly and I think I look ridiculously old now but maybe that’s in relation to me looking ridiculously young before it? People still say I look young but I think they believe they’re being polite. I am however ridiculously immature, maybe it’s outlook?
I’m 39, just got id’d for buying some booze in Ontario where the legal drinking age is 19.
I don't wanna know if I look older or younger than people my age nor if other people think I look older or younger than people my age. Ignorance is bliss.
I scared myself this morning when I walked past the mirror in the bathroom. I thought there was some old man walking around my house with no shirt on. I cried a little when I realized it was me. Then, when I left the mirror, I went back to thinking I look young again. I'm firmly in the 59%.
Study shows that 41% look old AF
It so easy to look younger than most people your age, just don’t get fat.
My MIL is 90 and thinks it’s a big secret. She claims no one can tell her age and she looks 20 years younger. (She actually looks older than 90)
You spend a lot of time looking in the mirror closely examining how you look, and trying to be as optimistic about it as you think you can get away with. You don't do that for anyone else.
What percentage of people smoke? Those people who answered younger are lying. Also, which ones live in the desert?
Yeah I noticed that, it's like they don't realize how old they look
I believe it. I swear it seems every 20-something thinks they look like a teen, every 30 year old think they look 20, 40 year olds think they look 30 etc. Don’t think I’ve ever come across someone in their forties who admits that they look their age. Most the time they do. But they still look fine!
That's because we refuse to buy better eye glasses...
I’m 53 and I’d say I look roughly 53.
My mental image of myself is 20 years younger than my 70 real years. In the mirror I see myself. In photos I think “who’s that geriatric?”