PERCEPTIONS OF AGING IN AN OLDER SAMPLE: LIFE SATISFACTION, EVALUATIONS OF OLD AGE, AND RESPONSES TO CARTOONS ABOUT OLD PEOPLE.

Abstract

The present study was an exploration of the relationships among life satisfaction, attitudes toward aging and responses to cartoons about aging. Subjects were 86 community resident, active and financially secure adults aged 53 to 85. In this sample of subjects, the Life Satisfaction Index (Neugarten, Havighurst and Tobin, 1961) factors of Mood, Congruence and Zest combined with satisfaction with social involvements to account for 50% of the variance of attitude toward old age. Attitudes toward aging were measured with the Kogan-Wallach (1961) semantic differential evaluating the concept of "old age". As expected, all subjects rated cartoons which portrayed a clearly negative view of aging as less funny and more negative than cartoons which portrayed a more ambivalent view of aging. Contrary to expectation, responses to cartoons about aging were unrelated to life satisfaction, evaluations of old age or perceived societal attitudes toward old age.