Trajectories of aging: imagined pathways in later life.

The model of aging that people construct influences interpretations of and responses to actual situations when they occur, as well as preparatory actions that people take. Thus the question of what people foresee for themselves and the process by which they construct and revise this subjective aging trajectory has implications for such issues as health behavior, retirement planning, migration and residential moves, and advance directives, as well as for overall well-being in old age. This exploratory, hypothesis-generating study found that informants referred frequently to the course of aging and the events they envisioned in their own futures. The analysis delineates 1) types of events that older people see as part of aging in general and their own aging in particular, 2) factors and processes that enter into the construction of the subjective trajectory of aging, and 3) feeling and behavioral responses to the imagined future.