(There’s a study for everything.) As one might also suspect, most of them are pretty unimaginative. Adults over 40 perceive themselves to be, on average, about 20 percent younger than their actual age.Īs one might suspect, there are studies that examine this phenomenon. You look around at your lined and thickened classmates, wondering how they could have so violently capitulated to age then you see photographs of yourself from that same event and realize: Oh.) The gulf between how old we are and how old we believe ourselves to be can often be measured in light-years-or at least a goodly number of old-fashioned Earth ones. (High-school reunions can have this same confusing effect. A friend, nearing 60, recently told me that whenever he looks in the mirror, he’s not so much unhappy with his appearance as startled by it-“as if there’s been some sort of error” were his exact words. Yet we seem to have an awfully rough go of locating ourselves in time. Most of us also know where our bodies are in space, what physiologists call “proprioception.” We don’t think of ourselves as having smaller ears or longer noses or curlier hair. Certainly most of us don’t believe ourselves to be shorter or taller than we actually are. Why do so many people have an immediate, intuitive grasp of this highly abstract concept-“subjective age,” it’s called-when randomly presented with it? It’s bizarre, if you think about it. Check out more from this issue and find your next story to read.

Who do we think we are