Abstract
Objective : The purpose of this study is to determine the degree of influence that "subjective physical problems" and "future time perspective" affect "negative anxiety", and to compare standardized coefficients of these two paths in a multiple indicator models of the covariance structure analysis among the young, the middle-aged, and the elderly. The multiple indicator models in this research were consisted of two unobservable exogenous variables called "future time perspective" and "subjective physical problems", and a latent endogenous variable called "negative anxiety". Subjects and method : In total 179 young, 180 middle-aged, and 160 elderly people were served as subjects. They were asked to give rating to 18 items of the Experiential Time Perspective Scale (Shirai, 1994) and additional 4 items. An exploratory factor analysis of these responses revealed that 5 items had high loading on one of 4 abstracted factors, which was named "future time perspective". Three items of 5, which had a higher value of factor loading more than. 5 for each of 3 groups (the young, the middle-aged and the elderly), were adopted as observable endogenous variables for a latent exogenous variable "future time perspective". Another unobservable exogenous variable named "subjective physical problems" included two observable endogenous variables. One is "physical condition" being judged by a question for general health condition. The other one is called "subjective symptoms" shown according to the number of checked items of the ten physical problems. Also all the subjects evaluated 25 items of Yamamoto's Anxiety Scale (Yamamoto, 1992). Through these responses, an exploratory factor analysis showed that 13 items had high loading on one of 2 abstracted factors, which was named "negative anxiety". Three items of 13, which had a higher value of factor loading than. 7 for all of 3 groups, were adopted as observable endogeneous variables for a latent endogeneous variable "negative anxiety". Results and conclusion : Through a simultaneous analysis of multiple population, the results showed that the standardized coefficients indicating degrees of influence of "subjective physical problems" on "negative anxiety" were almost same as about. 4 in all three groups (the young, middle age, and the elderly), while those of "future time perspective" on "negative anxiety" were -0.36 with statistical significance in the group of the middle-aged, but not significant in the group of the young and the group of the elderly. These results suggest that "subjective physical problems" would produce "negative anxiety" at similar proportion in any life cycle, while "future time perspective" could influence the decrease of negative anxiety only in the group of the middle-aged because the middle-aged people could predict their future in accordance with their present ecomonic and social situations.
