Selection, optimization, and compensation as strategies of life management: Correlations with subjective indicators of successful aging

The usefulness of self-reported processes of selection, optimization, and compensation (SOC) for predicting on a correlational level the subjective indicators of successful aging was examined. The sample of Berlin residents was a subset of the participants of the Berlin Aging Study. Three domains (marked by 6 variables) served as outcome measures of successful aging: subjective well-being, positive emotions, and absence of feelings of loneliness. Results confirm the central hypothesis of the SOC model: People who reported using SOC-related life-management behaviors (which were unrelated in content to the outcome measures) had higher scores on the 3 indicators of successful aging. The relationships obtained were robust even after controlling for other measures of successful mastery such as personal life investment, neuroticism extraversion, openness, control beliefs, intelligence, subjective health, or age.