Subjective age and older consumers

With the aging of modern society, academic scholars and practitioners are increasingly interested in understanding how older consumers think and behave, in order to meet better this growing segment’s needs, expectations, and desires with respect to products and services (see Guido, 2014; Gunter, 1999, for reviews). The study of older consumers’ behavior presumes a deep understanding of age-related processes and concepts. Aging is a fundamental aspect of human development, and chronological age—that is, the number of years one has lived (Barak and Gould, 1985)—has often been considered the most critical variable involved in the aging process. Yet a host of studies, conducted over the past few decades in various fields including gerontology (e.g., Kornadt et al., 2018; Kotter-Grühn, Kornadt, and Stephan, 2016), development psychology (e.g., Diehl et al., 2014; Montepare and Lachman, 1989), and consumer behavior (e.g., Kuppelwieser, 2016; Wilkes, 1992), have argued that aging is a multidimensional process, of which chronological aging represents only one aspect. Most of the studies have built on the notion that aging is a complex phenomenon that implicates not only biological changes (biological aging), but also the evolution of the social roles that individuals hold (social aging) and how they perceive themselves over time (psychological aging) (Settersten and Mayer, 1997). Therefore, an analysis limited to chronological age, its role in target marketing, and its potential effects on consumption behavior, is insufficient for a comprehensive account of how older consumers respond to marketing-related stimuli.