Abstract
Specially tailored SCT intending to elicit attitude toward one's own life, interpersonal attitude and value orientation of the aged were administered to two groups of subjects.
Group A were consisted of forty-six female subjects living with their families and group B of sixty-nine subjects living in an institution for the aged.
Each group was divided between a relatively younger sub-group (age: 60-74) and an older one (age: 75-).
Socio-educational background was controled to be almost the same between groups.
Findings 1. Those who live with their families (group A) showed much more positive feeling attached to their family image, to their attitude toward friend as well as to their own self image compared with group B responses. 2. In general self percepts of group A subjects were more clearly differentiated than ones of group B. 3. Their interest in future was more positive than B subjects. 4. Negative attitude toward life and accepting atitude toward death were characteristic of group B while group A were either ambivalent or positive toward life and objective toward death. 5. Group B tended to see little enjoyment in anything whereas group A tended to enjoy their interpersonal relationships. 6. The attitudinal change of B subjects by ageing was another kind of their salient features. In contrast to consistently positive image of family as well as one's own future of group A subjects through ageing, B subjects were characterized by attitudinal change through ageing. Younger institutionalized subjects tended to view their families either negative or neutral whereas older B subjects viewed it with positive but basically unconcerned attitude. It was noticeable that the younger B subjects tended to be concerned about their future health while the older ones were simply concerned about status quo as to their future.
Interpretation Different attitude toward self and others between two groups was interpreted as, at least partly owing to their difference in ego strength. Disengagement theory of attitudinal change in company of ageing was considered effective only to explain some features of the institutionalized subjects. In order to interpret our findings more satisfactorily, two additional psychological mechanisms, namely denial and reengagement, were tentatively postulated.
