Older adults are or older adults should be? Descriptive and prescriptive views of aging and their relation to self-reported behaviors in late adulthood.

Views of aging, encompassing conceptions about older adults, old age, and aging, are related to health and well-being via related behaviors. However, little is known about how different views of aging predict behaviors. Descriptive views of aging (DVoA) describe how older adults allegedly are (e.g., unfit or lonely). Prescriptive views of active aging (PVoA) entail beliefs about how older adults should behave (e.g., exercise or engage socially). Two alternatives for the relations between DVoA and PVoA with behaviors are possible-PVoA mirror DVoA as they entail normative expectations that older adults should compensate for deficits expressed via negative DVoA (e.g., older adults are lonely, so they should become socially engaged), indicating that behaviors can be predicted by one or the other. However, PVoA could be more strongly related to behaviors than DVoA, as they directly prescribe age-appropriate behaviors. Focusing on the health and social domains, we tested these predictions in three preregistered studies (total N = 1,141, 60-90 years). All studies showed that higher endorsement of PVoA (e.g., older adults should stay fit) and more positive DVoA (e.g., older adults do a lot for their fitness) were related to more self-reported health-related, prosocial, and socializing behaviors. PVoA was more closely related to self-reported behaviors than DVoA. Our findings underline the importance of PVoA and DVoA for understanding how views of aging could become embodied in older adults' self-reported behaviors. Moreover, interventions aiming at changing older adults' behaviors via views of aging should also target PVoA, not just DVoA. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).