Σύγκριση μεθόδων

	Attitudes to Aging Questionnaire	Successful Aging Operationalization
Πεδίο	Social Gerontology	Social Gerontology
Οικογένεια	Latent structure	Process / pipeline
Έτος προέλευσης	2007	1997
Δημιουργός	Ken Laidlaw, Mick Power, Silke Schmidt & the WHOQOL-OLD Group	John W. Rowe and Robert L. Kahn (MacArthur Foundation Research Network on Successful Aging)
Τύπος	Self-report scale of an older person's own attitudes to ageing	Operational framework for defining and classifying successful aging
Θεμελιώδης πηγή	Laidlaw, K., Power, M. J., Schmidt, S., & WHOQOL-OLD Group (2007). The Attitudes to Ageing Questionnaire (AAQ): development and psychometric properties. International Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry, 22(4), 367-379.	Rowe, J. W., & Kahn, R. L. (1997). Successful aging. The Gerontologist, 37(4), 433-440.
Εναλλακτικές ονομασίες	AAQ, Attitudes to Ageing Questionnaire, Laidlaw Attitudes to Ageing Questionnaire, WHOQOL-OLD Attitudes Measure	Rowe-Kahn Successful Aging Model, Successful Aging Criteria, MacArthur Successful Aging Framework, Three-Component Successful Aging
Συναφείς	3	4
Σύνοψη	The Attitudes to Ageing Questionnaire (AAQ) measures how older adults perceive their own experience of growing older, capturing self-directed attitudes rather than younger people's stereotypes of the old. Developed by Ken Laidlaw, Mick Power, Silke Schmidt, and the WHOQOL-OLD Group and published in 2007, it was created within the World Health Organization's cross-cultural quality-of-life programme to fill the absence of a multidimensional, older-person-centred attitude measure. The questionnaire contains 24 self-report items, eight per subscale, spanning three domains: psychosocial loss, physical change, and psychological growth. Respondents rate agreement on a Likert scale, and items are summed within each domain so that higher scores indicate a more positive attitude to ageing. Crucially, the AAQ treats ageing as having both negative and genuinely positive aspects, so the growth subscale recognizes wisdom and development rather than framing ageing only as decline. It was validated across many countries and has become a standard tool for studying self-perceptions of ageing and their links to well-being.	The Rowe-Kahn model operationalizes successful aging as a positive, multidimensional state rather than the mere absence of decline. In their landmark 1997 Gerontologist paper, John Rowe and Robert Kahn argued that gerontology had overemphasized average or 'usual' aging and neglected those who age well, and they proposed a concrete three-part definition. An individual is aging successfully when they simultaneously meet three criteria: low probability of disease and disease-related disability, high cognitive and physical functional capacity, and active engagement with life through productive activity and interpersonal relationships. Crucially, the model treats these as a hierarchy that must be met jointly, so success is defined by the conjunction of all three components rather than excellence on any one. The framework drew on the MacArthur Foundation Research Network's longitudinal studies and reframed aging as something partly within individual and societal control. It became one of the most cited and most debated organizing frameworks in social gerontology, spawning both widespread application and vigorous critique. Its enduring contribution is a clear, testable template for what 'good' aging means and how to classify it.