Attitudes toward Life and Aging: An Exploratory Comparison of Elderly and Young Adults

Abstract

~esearch 'has yielded few differences in fear of death by the young ancl the old, though the elderly do report unhappiness more often than the young (Veroff & Depner, 1978). To explore attitudes toward life and aging, two exploratory Likert-type scales were constructed: an 11-item scale to assess atcicudes toward aging and a 13-item scale to assess attitudes toward one's current 1ife.l The attitude toward aging scale was completed anonymously by 64 senior citizens in the community (M,, = 69.8 yr., SD = 5.9) and 71 college students (M,,, = 27.6 yr., SD = 9.6). The attitudes toward current life scale was given to 36 senior citizens in rhe community (M,, = 66.3 yr., SD = 4.4) and 52 college students (M:,,, = 25.2 yr., SD = 9.8). The senior citizens reported significantly less fear of aging than the young adulcs (mean scores -7.4 and 1.2, SD = 11.5 and 10.0; t = 4.57, df = 134, two-tailed p < ,001). The two groups did not differ in scores on attitudes toward their current life (mean scores 24.8 and 21.8, SD = 8.7 and 7.9; t = 1.42, df = 61). The scores of the groups on these scales were uncelared to sex, age (within each group), and educational level (some college' education versus none for the elderly, years of college for the young adults). For the college students, scores on the scale assessing current attitudes toward life were negacively correlated with scores on fear of death (Lester, 1967) ( r = -.43, df = 46, two-tailed p < ,001). Students with positive atcicudes toward their current life had less fear of death. The present data scggest that senior citizens and college students are equally positive about their current life, bur the senior citizens have much less fear of aging.