Older women's constructs of their lives: a quantitative and qualitative exploration.

Abstract

In the present article, the lifespan construct model was applied to the lives of older women by administering the life drawing to a sample of seventy-eight community-dwelling elderly women. Respondents also completed the Bradburn Affect Balance Scale and the Nowicki-Strickland locus of control measure. Correlations were examined among measures derived from the life drawing (time perspective, affect, and content), affect, and locus of control. Quantitative findings indicated that the more positively adjusted older women were those who maintained an external locus of control, were future-oriented, and whose lifespan constructs were defined in terms of family. The qualitative data provided further support, as the women who described their lives in positive terms were those who seemed to define themselves in terms of their families. The findings were interpreted in terms of Erikson's theory and feminist approaches to understanding women's lives.