Correlates of satisfaction among the small town elderly
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"INTRODUCTION TO THE PROBLEM: "Old" is a unique social category. It is both achieved and ascribed. It is achieved with little, if any, effort on the part of the individual and ascribed despite its desirability. It is achieved regardless of other social characteristics and ascribed on the basis of no more than the passage of time--whether this is measured by the calendar, by role sets, or simply by the appearance of the biological organism. In some cultures, old is beautiful. However, in many cultures, and particularly those undergoing rapid social change, old is obsolete. It is "functional" in such societies to ascribe low status to the elderly. This provides younger generations with a "rationalization" for removing "old" from the social mainstream and replacing it with "new." The aging individual, however, is caught in a dilemma when he suddenly finds himself the object of his own negative stereotype. This is aptly stated in the story about the man and his son who were carrying grandfather to the river in a sack to dispose of him, and the son said, "Save the sack, father, I'll need it for you." It has been suggested that two universal human desires are to prolong life and to depart life honorably. It would appear, however, that the two are mutually exclusive, with "primitive" societies achieving the latter and "modern" societies achieving the former. Put another way, the status of the elderly seems high where they are few and low where they are many. Nonetheless, the quest to unite the two would seem to account for much of the current attention to the elderly. This concern for the dilemma faced by twenty million Americans, combined with the financial ability to be concerned, has resulted in a proliferation of literature on the topic over the past twenty-five years. The elderly have been shown to be healthier/unhealthier/the same as middle generations. They have been shown to participate more/less/the same. It is said that they have negative/positive/neutral attitudes toward death, old age, the middle generation and self. Satisfaction is shown to increase/decrease/remain constant with advancing age. Their concern for family, friends, and the church become greater/less/unchanged in old age. In other words, a number of seemingly contradictory statements have been made about the elderly. It is the author’s contention that these "contradictions" merely reflect the complexity of that group called the "elderly," and are a function of particular subsamples of this group from which the observations arose. For example, one investigation of the present study sample has shown that satisfaction decreases with age, while two others have shown no relationship. However, the former involved the entire sample while the latter was based on selected subsamples which were homogeneous in many respects--but not in age. This points out that satisfaction, at least, is not a necessary correlate of age, but rather, is a function of subgroup characteristics for which age serves as a convenient "handle." In addition to "elderly" complexity, it is believed that the "contradictions" arise from the methods of analysis used by many investigators. Admitting exceptions, these methods have involved simple linear examinations of relationships. Thus, claims are made that health declines with age, and income declines with age, and participation declines with age, and satisfaction declines with age--but few attempts have been made to determine the interacting influence of income on health, health on participation, participation on satisfaction, etc."--Page 1.
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