Sardinian elders: successful aging and psychosocial correlates despite response bias.

Extreme variance in the prevalence of successful ageing (SA) has been observed raising concern over the generalizability of findings. The study of populations characterized by SA is one solution to this problem. A total of 226 cognitively healthy community-dwelling participants aged 75–103, from the Blue Zone region of Sardinia were recruited and completed a range of indices of SA. Putative psychosocial correlates of SA were also assessed along with a measure of social desirability. After controlling significant social desirability bias, multiple indices of SA were found to be high relative to Italian cutoffs and differed between age groups and genders. A significant proportion of the variance in SA indices was explained by social desirability, perceived physical health, gender, cognitive failures and gardening. Superior SA was evident in Sardinian elders. The data underscore a need to control social desirability bias when exploring the basis of SA.