Activity and Morale: A Longitudinal Study of Selected Elderly Subjects

Abstract

It is frequently reported that, among elderly persons, contact with the environment decreases with age. Since is a positive correlate of morale, morale also reportedly decreases with age. This argument is supported, with qualification, by data from a longitudinal study of the relationship between and morale among 182 non-institutionalized subjects sixty years of age and over. Analysis focuses on the deviant case and on factors which modify the expected relationship among age, activity, and morale. Selected health, attitudinal, and type of activity factors are shown to be related to the probability of observing elderly subjects with low but high morale or with high but low morale. T he relationiship between and morale has been a perennial subject of research in the field of gerontology?I Whether or not (lifferences in the degree and kind of contact which elderly persons have with the environment tend to be associated with predictable differences in morale (variously defined in terms of feelings of control, purposiveness, satisfaction, optimism, belonging, identification with some normative order, or self-esteem) is of interest to sociologists and social psychologists, regardless of their interest in gerontology. For this question is related generically to clarification of the relationship between and sentiments and * Revision of a paper presented to the Section on Old Age and Social Structure, American Sociological Association, Washington, D. C., 1962. The research on which this paper is based was supported in part by Grant M-900, National Institute of Health. The computations involved were carried out in the Duke University Computing Laboratory, which is supported in part by the National Science Foundation. 1 For example, Ruth S. Cavan, et al., Personal Adjustment in Old Age (Chicago: Science Research Associates, 1949), p. 50ff.; R. J. Havighurst, et al., Older People (New York: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1953), p. 285ff.; Bernard Kutner, Five Hundred Over Sixty (New York: Russell Sage Fotindation, 1956), p. 104ff.; Elaine Cumming and W. E. Henry, Growing Old (New York: Basic Books, 1961); Sheldon Tobin and Bernice Neugarten, Life Satisfaction and Social Interaction, Journal of Gerontology, Vol. 16 (October 1961), pp. 344-346; and George Maddox and Carl Eisdorfer, Some Correlates of Activity and Morale Among the Elderly, Social Forces, Vol. 26 (March 1962), pp. 254-260. This content downloaded from 207.46.13.21 on Tue, 27 Sep 2016 05:01:19 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms