A STRUCTURAL MODELING APPROACH TO THE MEASUREMENT AND MEANING OF COGNITIVE AGE

This article examines the measurement properties of cognitive age and its relationship both to demographic antecedent variables and to nondemographic consequential variables through the use of a structural modeling framework. Cognitive age is shown to possess unidimensionality and to demonstrate acceptable reliability. Cognitively younger "older" women manifested higher self-confidence and greater fashion interest, were more work oriented, and had greater participation in entertainment and culturally related activities. Contrary to the hypothesis, cognitively younger women were not more socially involved than their cognitively older counterparts.