Ambivalence, old age and agency. Meaning of age-specific ambivalence for the construction of narrative identity

Different models of the formation of age identity explain the empirically determined difference between the chronological age and the age which is subjectively perceived by elderly people themselves. From a biographical point of view and on the basis of two maximally contrasting empirical cases, this article investigates the ways ambivalence appears in the narrations of elderly people about personal aging and the narrative strategies of coping with this experience of ambivalence. The results of the analysis indicate that the conceptualization of age identity in the different models should be seen more as descriptions of potential but not necessary forms of coping with age-specific ambivalences.