Feeling younger than one's chronological age is associated with various beneficial health outcomes. However, apart from these direct health effects, little is known about the role of subjective age as a potential "buffer" and compensatory resource that might counteract the detrimental effect of health risk factors. We investigated whether the effect of perceived stress as a major health risk factor on change in functional health is smaller among individuals who feel younger. Additionally, we analyzed whether this "stress buffer effect" of subjective age varies by chronological age. Longitudinal data from the German Ageing Survey comprising 3 years (2014-2017) were used (N = 5,039; mean age at baseline: M = 63.91 years, SD = 10.80 years, range 40-95 years). Latent change score models revealed that, controlling for baseline functional health as well as for sociodemographic variables, greater perceived stress was associated with a steeper decline in functional health. This effect increased in size with advancing chronological age. Moreover, a younger subjective age was associated with a less steep decline in functional health. Subjective age additionally exhibited a stress buffer effect: Among individuals who felt younger, the association of greater perceived stress with steeper functional health decline was weaker. This stress buffer effect of subjective age became larger with increasing age. Our findings thus suggest that, particularly among older adults, a younger subjective age might help to buffer functional health decline, not only by directly affecting functional health, but also by compensating and counteracting the detrimental effect of stress on functional health. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

中文翻译：

---

感觉年轻一点作为压力缓冲剂：主观年龄可减轻感知到的压力对功能性健康变化的影响。

感觉不到自己的年龄会导致各种有益的健康结果。但是，除了这些直接的健康影响外，对于主观年龄作为潜在“缓冲”和补偿性资源的作用可能知之甚少，而这些可能会抵消健康风险因素的不利影响。我们调查了感觉压力作为主要健康风险因素对功能性健康变化的影响是否在感觉较年轻的个体中较小。此外，我们分析了主观年龄的这种“压力缓冲效应”是否随时间的年龄而变化。使用了来自德国老龄化调查的纵向数据，包括3年（2014-2017年）（N = 5,039；基线平均年龄：M = 63.91岁，SD = 10.80岁，范围40-95岁）。潜在变化得分模型显示，在控制基线功能健康以及社会人口统计学变量时，更大的感知压力与功能健康的急剧下降有关。随着年龄的增长，这种效应的大小增加。此外，较年轻的主观年龄与机能健康下降幅度较小有关。主观年龄还表现出压力缓冲作用：在感到年轻的个体中，更大的感知压力与较严重的功能健康下降之间的关联较弱。随着年龄的增长，主观年龄的这种压力缓冲作用变得更大。因此，我们的发现表明，尤其是在老年人中，较年轻的主观年龄可能不仅可以直接影响功能健康，而且可以帮助缓解功能健康的下降，而且还可以补偿和抵消压力对功能性健康的不利影响。（PsycInfo数据库记录（c）2021 APA，保留所有权利）。