A six-decade study links teenage school anxiety to late-life memory complaints
While childhood intelligence and grades do not predict how people view their memory in old age, a new study finds that early adolescent school anxiety does.
A comprehensive study spanning six decades has revealed that teenage school anxiety is linked to late-life memory complaints. The research, published in the Journal of Gerontology: Psychological Sciences, suggests that early-life psychological health, particularly emotional well-being, can influence how individuals perceive their cognitive decline in older age.
The study, led by doctoral student Gideon Neidenmark at Örebro University in Sweden, analyzed data from the IDA-project, a long-term Swedish longitudinal study initiated in 1965. Participants were assessed at ages 10, 13, and 67, with researchers collecting data on cognitive abilities, school performance, family socioeconomic status, and self-reported anxiety and depression.
The findings indicate that higher levels of school anxiety during early adolescence predict worse subjective memory at age 67, even after controlling for current anxiety and depressive symptoms. This association highlights the significance of early psychological health in shaping later-life cognitive perceptions, with childhood factors like cognitive ability, school grades, social well-being, and family socioeconomic status not showing significant predictive power for subjective memory in later life.
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