University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses

Future time perspective, commitments and life satisfaction of retired women educators

(USC Thesis Other)

Future time perspective, commitments and life satisfaction of retired women educators

PDF

Download

Open document

Flip pages

Download a page range

Download transcript

Copy asset link

Request this asset

Transcript (if available)

Content FUTURE TIME PERSPECTIVE, COMMITMENTS AND LIFE SATISFACTION OF RETIRED WOMEN EDUCATORS by Joanne Steuer A Dissertation Presented to the FACULTY OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOL UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY (Education) August, 1976 UMI Number: DP24248 All rights reserved INFORMATION TO ALL USERS The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. In the unlikely event that the author did not send a complete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. Published by ProQuest LLC (2014). Copyright in the Dissertation held by the Author. D issertatio n P ubl.thing UMI DP24248 Microform Edition © ProQuest LLC. All rights reserved. This work is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code ProQuest LLC. 789 East Eisenhower Parkway P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 48106- 1346 UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA T H E G R A D U A T E S C H O O L U N IV E R S IT Y P A R K LO S A N G E L E S , C A L IF O R N IA 9 0 0 0 7 ^ 'wmp S S42 This dissertation, written by JOANNE STEUER under the direction of h ^ .... Dissertation Com mittee, and approved by all its members, has been presented to and accepted by The Graduate School, in partial fulfillment of requirements of the degree of D O C T O R O F P H I L O S O P H Y Dean Date ITTEE Chairman ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS To the 61 women of the California Retired Teachers Association who participated in this study I wish to say thank you for sharing a portion of your lives with me. I also wish to express my appreciation to Barbara Esaw for her patience and effort in typing this dissertation and to my colleague Marjorie Cook for her many helpful sugges tions and moral support during the past year. ii TABLE OF CONTENTS Page ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS LIST OF TABLES Chapter I. INTRODUCTION 1 Statement of the Problem Research Hypotheses Importance of the Problem Theoretical Background Definition of Terms Delimitations of the Study Organization of the Remainder of the Dissertation Orientation Time Orientation: Evaluation Time Density Time Extension Time Extension: Projective Techniques Time Extension: Subjective Life Expectancy Coherence Studies of Planning of Old Persons Summary Sample Planning Questionnaire Procedure Operational Definitions and Instrumentation Data Analysis II. REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE 13 III. METHODOLOGY 41 iii TABLE OF CONTENTS (Con't) Chapter Page IV. FINDINGS . . . .................................. 66 Correlational Data Subjective Variates Supplementary Findings Summary of the Findings Discussion V. SUMMARY, CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS . . . 109 Methodology Data Analysis Summary of Findings Conclusions Recommendations APPENDICES............... 119 REFERENCES ................................ 141 iv LIST OF TABLES Tables Page 1. T Test of Difference Between Means on LSI-A Scale of Subjects Agreeing and Not Agreeing To Be Interviewed.............. . ................. 44 2. T Test of The Difference Between Means of Age of Interview and Non-Interview Groups . . 45 3. T Test of The Difference Between Means of Number of Years From Retirement of Interview and Non-Interview Groups ........................ 46 4. Relationship of Interview (N=61)/No Interview (N=36) To Income Level ............... 47 5. Relationship of Interview (N=61)/No Interview (N=39) To Health Status............... 48 6. Relationship of Interview (N=61)/No Interview (N=38) To Marital Status ............. 49 7. Summary of Regression Analyses.................... 61 8. Summary of Data Transformation.................. 62 9. Data Groupings For Chi Square Analyses......... 64 10. Multiple Regressions of Subjective Life Expectancy, and Future Commitments on LSI-A and LSI-B With Age Utilized As A Control Variate............................................ 68 11. Multiple Regression Analyses For Number of Good Years Left, and Future Commitments on LSI-A and LSI-B With Age Utilized As A Control Variate ........................... 69 v LIST OF TABLES (Con't) Tables Page 12. Correlation Matrix of Variables Utilized In Regression Analyses.......................... . . 72 13. ANOVA: Subjective Life Expectancy, Future Commitments, LSI-A and LSI-B ........ 7 3 14. ANOVA: Number of Good Years Left, Future Commitments, LSI-A and LSI-B ................. 74 15. Means and Standard Deviations on LSI-A For No-Extension, Short Extension, and Long Extension of Subjective Life Expectancy .... 76 16. ANOVA: LSI-A and Subjective Life Expectancy . 77 17. Means and Standard Deviations on LSI-B For No-Extension, Short Extension and Long Extension of Subjective Life Expectancy .... 78 18. ANOVA: LSI-B and Subjective Life Expectancy . 80 19. Means and Standard Deviations on LSI-A For No Extension, Short Extension and Long Extension of Number of Good Years Left .... 82 20. ANOVA: LSI-A and Number of Good Years Left . . 83 21. Means and Standard Deviations on LSI-B For No Extension, Short Extension and Long Extension of Number of Good Years Left .... 84 22. ANOVA; LSI-B and Number of Good Years Left . . 85 23. Relationship of LSI-A and LSI-B to Extension Into Near Future................................ 86 24. Relationship of Extension/No Extension of Goals and/or Plans Into the Distant Future to LSI-A and LSI-B . 88 vi LIST OF TABLES (Con't) Tables Page 25. Relationship of LSI-A and LSI-B To Income Level ...................................... 90 26. Relationship of LSI-A, LSI-B and Years From Retirement................................. 91 27. Relationship of LSI-A, LSI-B and Retirement S t a t u s ................................... . 92 28. Relationship of LSI-A, LSI-B and Marital Status................................. 93 29. Relationship of LSI-A, LSI-B and Living Situation . . ........................ 94 30. Relationship of LSI-A, LSI-B and Transportation ................................. 95 31. Relationship of LSI-A, LSI-B and Subjective Amount of Planning .... ... .. 96 32. Relationship of LSI-A, LSI-B and Subjective Health Rating ........................ 97 33. Relationship of Future Commitments and Subjective Amount of Planning ............. 99 34. Relationship of Health Status To Number of Good Years Left and To Subjective Life Expectancy......................... ....... 100 35. Item Analysis, LSI-A: Item Acceptability and Point-Biserial Correlations ........ 102 vii CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION "Time is the heart of existence" (May, 1958:69) The capacity to experience time, to estimate and to conceptualize it is a gradually developing human charac teristic. The sense of time grows from the internalization of experience and is tied to the development of the ego (Wallace and Rabin, 1960). Although it is debated which concepts, past or future, develop first, by adolescence the person has a fully developed time perspective which includes past, present and future (Doob, 1971). Through early adulthood time perspective is stable, but at middle age there is a restructuring from time since birth to time left to live (Neugarten, 1968). In later life, awareness of death has been suggested as causing a further restructuring of time perspective (Butler, 1963). It is the key to a turning away from the future and back into the past to accomplish the developmental task of setting one’s life in order (Erikson, 1959). Kastenbaum (19 65) however, thought the developmental task of the old person might be to find a way of keeping the future open. 1 2 The two major psycho-social theories of aging, dis engagement theory (Cumming and Henry, 1961) and activity theory (Havighurst, Neugarten, and Tobin, 1968) address themselves directly to the problem of what constitutes successful aging, and by implication to the functional consequences of futurity. Disengagement theory proposed that a loss of futurity, or a turning away from society by the old person and of society from the individual, was mutually satisfying. In this way both the person and society prepare for the death of the individual. On the other hand, activity theory postulated that continued high levels of activity and social interaction were most satisfactory to the aging individual. Thus the concept of futurity and its relation to adaptation processes of older persons has become of con cern to counselors and psychologists. Lack of futurity, or "the inability to characterize the immediate and distant future" (Miller and Lieberman, 1965) was found to be related to negative adaptation in institutionalized older women. Perceived nearness of death has been associated with a shortening of future time per spective (Wohlford, 1966) and with non-adaptive behavior in the present (Teahan and Kastenbaum, 1970). Although futurity has been divided into several com- 3 ponents (Kastenbaum, 1959) , future time extension, or how far a person is witling to project into the future, appears to be its most important component (Wallace, 195 6; Wohlford, 1966; Lowenthal et al., 1975). Research has shown extension to be positively related with academic achievement and optimism in the young (Teahan, 1958) and high peer judgments of competency and psychological health in the old (Lowenthal et al., 1975) . It was also found to be affected by institutionalization (Fink, 1958). Planning, that is, the imposition of structure on future time has been considered a behavioral manifestation of futurity (Spence, 1968) . Spence1s study indicated that there was, for old adults, a relationship between planning and life satisfaction. A study by Schonfield (1973) showed that future commitments were related to age, socioeconomic status and successful aging. The task here was to bring together in one study two areas of research on futurity; that concerned with the subjective experience of time and that concerned with behaviors towards time. Statement of the Problem This study was designed to investigate the relation ship between futurity and successful aging. The objective 4 was to determine whether two measures of future time perspective, i,e., beliefs concerning time extension and time structuring behaviors (Planning), were related to life satisfaction of old persons. Two measures of extension were utilized in separate analyses. These were subjective life expectancy and number of good years left to live. Also of interest was the interaction between each of the extension variates and planning in their relationship to satisfactory aging. The relationships of near and distant future exten sion and of subjective amount of planning to satisfaction were investigated. As socioeconomic status has been shown to be signi ficantly related to both adaptation and satisfaction of old persons (Cameron, 1973; Schonfield, 1973) an important aspect of this study was the control, through sampling, of socioeconomic class. Only persons who were, by profes sion, considered members of the middle class were included in this investigation. Previous research has indicated that there are proba bly changes in a person's subjective experience of, and behavior towards, time at approximately age 75 (Spence, 1968; Schonfield, 1973). Therefore, for control purposes, in this study age was divided into two categories, 6 0-74 years and 75-84 years. Research Hypotheses 1. There is a significant relationship between subjec tive life expectancy and future commitments to life satisfaction when age is controlled and socioeconomic status is held constant. 2. There is a significant relationship between predic tions of number of good years left to live and future commitments to life satisfaction when age is controlled and socioeconomic status is held constant. 3. There is a significant interaction between subjective life expectancy and future commitments in their relation to life satisfaction. 4. There is a significant interaction between number of good years left and future commitments in their rela tion to life satisfaction. 5. The relationship between extension of plans into the near future and life satisfaction is significant. 6. There is a significant relationship between extension of goals and/or plans into the distant future and life satisfaction. 6 7. There is a significant relationship between subjective amounts of planning and life satisfaction. 8. The relationship between subjective and expressed amounts of planning (future commitments) is signi ficant . 9. There will be significant relationships between life satisfaction and demographic variates. Importance of the Problem In 197 5 approximately 21 million Americans were over age 65. Estimates for 1980 are even higher (Population Reference Bureau, 1975). The older person is, and will be, making demands for mental health resources. The most common form of psychological disorder of the aged is de pression (Post, 1972) while meaningless and apathy are common complaints (Burnside, 1973). These have been viewed clinically as disturbances in the in individual's relation to time (Minkowski, 1970). It is therefore important for counselors to under stand the relationship of successful aging to subjective attitudes and objective behaviors toward time. If planning is a method of keeping the future open, perhaps counselors will be able to aid their clients in developing this behavior. Further, the results of this research may aid 7 the counselor in understanding how the older client structures his world both phenomenologically and behaviorally. Theoretical Background The existentialist has placed time at the "center of the psychological picture" (May, 1958) and then postu lated that it is the future and not the past which is the dominant mode of human experience. Time perspective is developed as a function of the internalization of experience of the instinct driven, present orientated, pleasure principle dominanted, infant. The internalization of experience coincides with and is tied to the development of the "reality principle," the ego (Wallace and Rabin, 1960). Time perspective is, "an adaption process of the highest significance" (Hartmann, 1958:22). Time perspective has been tied to the differentia tion of life space into reality and fantasy levels (Lewin, 1942). This corresponds to the Freudian's view of the relationship between futurity and ego development. Lewin believed that the psychological future envisioned by the individual affected actions in the present. He thought that it was the interaction of reality, what is 8 presently possible, with fantasy, what may be possible, that was the basic component of morale. Thus, imagining oneself into the future was linked in the present to action, planning and to morale. Neugarten (1964), while not concerned with time perspective per se, noted that with advancing age the ego was weakened and the individual had less control of impulse life. If her observations were correct they would help account for a diminution of futurity in the elderly, as futurity has been linked to ego, ie., adaptive, executive processes. Erikson (195.9) thought the task of old age was to review and integrate the past. The functional value of reminiscence in old age has been described by Butler (1963). Disengagement theory (Cumming and Henry, 1961), with its emphasis on mutual individual and societal withdrawal, has implied that the aged were to be dis couraged from looking towards the future. Successful aging is an adaptation process. It implies a sense of well being and of high morale. The assumption is that each individual is the best and proper judge of "life satisfaction," for it is the individual's judgment of self as acceptable that is in question. 9 Definition of Terms The following terms are defined by their usual meanings. Operational definitions will be found in Chapter III. 1. Time Extension. Time extension is the length of time a person was willing to project into the future. Four measures of time extension were utilized in this study. a. Subjective Life Expectancy (SLE). The length of time an individual projected for her life span. b. Number of Good Years Left (NGL). An estimate of the amount of time a person thought that she would remain competent to enjoy life. c. Extension Into The Near Future. The furthest point in time mentioned for plans in the near future. d. Extension Into The Distant Future. The having of plans and/or goals in the distant future. Thus, SLE and NGL are subjective and Extension Into The Near and Distant Future are behavioral measures of time extension. 2. Future Commitments (PL). Commiting oneself to engage ments in the future, or planning, is the behavior of imposing structure on time. Future commitments 10 consisted of the number of hours which a person was willing to state were scheduled for during the week following the interview. Future commitments and planning will be used interchangeably. 3. Subjective Amount of Planning. The subjective im pression of each person as to how much she structured her time during the coming weeks. 4. Life Satisfaction. Self assessed satisfaction with one's own life. The individual is the sole judge of her own we11 being. 5. Socioeconomic Status. A combination of amount of education and profession. Subject were retired women teachers who had a minimum of two years of college. 6. Age. Chronological age, 60+. Delimitations of the Study 1. The study was limited to retired women teachers who were members of the California Retired Teachers Association, Los Angeles Division and who were living in Los Angeles during March, April, and May, 197 6. Any generalization of the findings of this study should be limited to women with the same type of profes sional group membership and to the same general 11 geographic area. 2. Subjects were volunteers who returned an unsolicited questionnaire and agreed to be interviewed. There was no way of ascertaining if any difference existed between this group and those who did not return the questionnaire. Therefore, generalization of results to non-volunteers must be made with extreme caution. 3. The women who participated in the study were all living in the community. Results may not be genera lized to institutionalized groups. 4. Sample size may affect the Statistical significance of the tests utilized. Organization of the Remainder of the Dissertation The dissertation is organized in the following manner: Chapter I includes the introduction to the problem; the statement of the problem; the questions to be answered and the hypotheses; demonstrates the importance of the problem; defines terms utilized and states delimitations of the study. Chapter II reviews the empirical literature on Future Time Perspective (FTP) of old persons; differences in FTP of young and old persons; planning and subjective life expectancy. 12 Chapter III explains the methodology; describes the sample, procedure and instruments; gives operational de finitions and describes the data analyses utilized in this study. Chapter IV presents the findings of the study. Chapter V includes a summary of the study; and pre sents conclusions and recommendations. CHAPTER II ! REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE This chapter will review empirical literature on Future Time Perspective (FTP) pertinent to this study. The chapter will be organized under the components of FTP; orientation, density, extension and coherence. In cluded will be studies of FTP of old persons, differences in FTP of young and old persons, and investigations of planning and of subjective life expectancy. Time perspective is a global term meaning a person's subjective experience of, or attitude towards, time. Two excellent reviews of the literature (Wallace and Rabin, 1960; Fraisse, 1963) called for more specificity of de finition in the use of the concept. For the purposes of this present review time per spective will be divided into four components, direction, density, extension and coherence (Kastenbaum, 1959) . Where an individual perceives himself in time is called direction or orientation. Density is a quantitative measure of the number of events which took place or are expected to happen within a given time period. Extension is the amount of time an individual projects into the future. The fourth element, coherence, relates to how an 13 _____________ 14 individual's outlook on the future is organized. Orientation An early study (Fink, 1957) investigated the rela tionship between time orientation, age, institutionaliza tion and activity. Two experimental procedures were utilized. Subjects were asked to recall 40 items that they had thought or spoken about in the previous week or two. Subjects were then asked to place each item in the past, present or future. Demographic data were gathered and five Thematic Apperception Test type cards were administered. On both • ; subjective (TAT) and objective measures (items spoken about) the institutionalized group was significantly more concerned with the past and signi ficantly less concerned with the future than was the non institutionalized group. Older men living in the community (age 61-7 6) thought more about the past than did younger men (age 50-60) in the same living situation, but were far more concerned with the future than were institu tionalized younger men. Fink (1957) also found a significant positive cor relation between the number of hours devoted to work and/or hobbies and future orientation. From this it would appear 15 that future orientation had a relationship, modified by age and living situation, with involvement. Rosenfelt, Kastenbaum and Slater (1964) were in terested in the short range (72 hours) time orientation of geriatric patients. Subjects (N=57) were from a hospital population. Age range was 66-94. Educational range was 0-15 years. Both males and females were in cluded in the sample. No restrictions on health or psychological functioning were made in chosing the sample. Subjects were asked "What did you do yesterday?" and "What would you like to do tomorrow?" (294) . Although subjects saw themselves as active agents in yesterday’s activities they tended not to see themselves as agents in tomorrow's activities. Tomorrow was "vulnerable to interference from the environment or by circumstances" (295). Subjects with the shortest history of institutionalization were most concerned that tomorrow would bring outside restrictions on activities. Perhaps these subjects had not yet 'adjusted' to the 'patient role' and therefore were more aware of interference from hospital staff than were persons who had been institu tionalized longer. This study appeared to reinforce Fink's (1957) con clusions that institutionalization affected time per- 16 spective. Unfortunately data were not analyzed by age. Kuhlen and Monge (1968) found a decline in future orientation with age for both sexes across three age groups, 20-39; 40-59; 60+. Future orientation in this study was the sum of scores for four items on a question naire. For women a preference for immediate gratifica tion, and a decrease in the self rated ability to delay gratification, accompanied the decline in future orienta tion. Other studies reporting a loss in the ability to delay gratification with age were Wolk, et al, (1963) and Costa and Kastenbaum (19 64). The reduction in delaying capacity was seen as a healthy adaptation by Costa and Kastenbaum (19 64) and as a regressive, pathological movement by Wolk, et al, (1963). Variations of the following procedure were utilized in three surveys on the direction of time of old-young, institutionalized-non-institutionalized adults (Cameron, 1972). The experimenter knocked at the door of a house. If the person opening the door was between 18-40 or 59+ he was asked "What were you just thinking about?" For all age groups, both sexes, institutionalized patients and home dwellers, the order of frequency of time direction was present, future, past. Present centered thinking appeared 17 to increase with age and future oriented thinking declined. Lowenthal, et al, (1975) investigated time orientation with the question "When you have the chance to think about yourself and your life, would you say that you tend to think or daydream more about the past or the future?" (129). No differences in time orientation of young and old subjects were found, but more old than young respondents thought more about the past. Time orientation was found to be associated with time density. For both young and old a past orientation was associated with a greater likelihood that the next important event would be further away in time; for the future orientated the next most important event was expected within a three month period. The authors concluded that this might be a function of individual differences in timing and therefore indicative of personality characteristics as well as of life cir cumstances . Time orientation for old subjects was positively associated with involvement in activities. Lowenthal, et al, found that those persons reporting future orienta tion were more likely to also report "getting so absorbed in something they were doing that they lost track of time" (132) . Although Lowenthal's (1975) sample was grouped into 18 young and old, the criterion for placing subjects into these categories was different than that utilized in the other studies included here. Lowenthal used social age rather than chronological age. The young group consisted of high school seniors (age range 16-18) and newly weds (age range 2 0^3 8). The old group was composed of parents facing the "empty nest," mean age, 50, and pre-retirees, mean age 60. Age range was not reported for the two older groups. Time Orientation: Evaluation Young and old persons made different evaluations of the past and future. Adolescents tended to be more harsh in their judgments about the past than did adults (Menahem, 1972). Young persons with a negative evaluation of the past five years tended to have a positive outlook on the present and future (Bortner and Hulsch, 1972). This relationship decreased in intensity with age until about age 60 when past, present and future were equally evaluated. By 7 0 the direction of the relationship had changed and the past seemed better than the present and the present seemed better than the future (Bortner and Hulsch, 1972). These findings could be interpreted as a push towards independence in adolescents and the beginning of disengagement in the old. 19 When asked which was the best and worst stage of life subjects tended to view their present life stage as best (Lowenthal, et al, 1975). For subjects choosing past or future stages there was a sharp difference between young and old. None of the older subjects saw the future as best. Men saw old age as the worst period; women chose adolescence. Women of all ages felt that they had already gone through the worst stage of their lives. The majority of men felt that the worst was yet to come. Lehr (1967) looked at attitudes toward the future of German middle class old persons (age range 60-75) living in their own households. Subjects were divided into two age groups, 60-65 and 70-75. Health, as rated by a physician, socioeconomic status, positive mood and general responsiveness were associated with positive attitudes towards the future in young women and both groups of men, but no relation ship was found for older women. Active old men and active women in both groups had positive attitudes. Feelings of security were important for attitudes towards the future of the old female group but not for any of the other groups. Intelligence was associated with positive attitude, more for males than females and more for old than young. No correlation with activity in social roles was found, but 20 positive and negative attitude groups differed signi- ficantly on degree of satisfaction with the present. Although this study was commendable in that sex differences were considered, Lehr's (1967) reporting of method and data analysis was extremely sketchy. Lehr's reputation as a reputable researcher was all there was to give credence to the article. Time Density Studies of time density are concerned with the quantitative number of events with which time is filled and with the length of time between events. The results of three studies were reported by Nuttin (1964). Comparing three age groups, 18-20; 23-25; 30- 35; matched on social level and profession, Nuttin found all groups had approximately equal proportions of their aspirations located within their present life phase. Young students (18-20) had a large proportion of their aspirations located within the next one year period. This was not true of the other two groups. A study of time density of 14 years olds found this age group with a significantly high proportion of their aspirations located in the first one week period. Again, this was not true of an older group. 21 The third study reported old persons had a signi ficant number of motivational objects placed one month in the future. Young subjects were more concerned with objects one to two years into the future. Once again, data and instruments were not fully reported. A sentence completion technique, e.g. "I really want," --- "I wish" ---, etc. was utilized. Nuttin found that almost all motivational objects were placed in the future, but with the type of example given for the sentence completion test it was possible that his findings were biased by the instrument itself. Other studies have reported that old subjects ex perience fewer recent important changes than do young subjects (Kuhlen and Monge, 1968; Lowenthal, et al, 1975). It would seem obvious that the tasks associated with old age are fewer than those associated with youth, given our present social structure. Nuttin (19 64) put it succinctly when he wrote, Depth of future time perspective in human motivation is not primarily related to age and to difference in age as such, but rather to the nature of the behavioral plans and tasks and to the social structure in which these plans and tasks are embedded. (72) 22 Time Extension How far ahead does a person think? How far into the future does an individual project his life-span? These are the questions which concern investigators of future time extension. An important question for this study is* What are the implications of a old person's time extension? Two types of studies of time extension appear in the literature, those based on projective techniques and more recently, those based on a direct question concerning projection of life-span. These studies will be reviewed separately. Time Extension: Projective Techniques Ka^tenbaum (1963) compared old (age range, 66-89; median age 77) with young (age range 18-2 4, median age, 19) adults on measures of "personal" and "cognitive" futurity. The 24 old subjects were "well oriented" and of "at least average intelligence" but were institution alized. The 24 young subjects were college students. Cognitive futurity, or, "the orientation toward utilizing time as an abstract cognitive category for organizing and interpreting experience" (217) was measured by a story completion technique. Three of the story roots had temporal direction, past, ipf.esent and future. The 23 fourth root was neutral. Personal futurity, or that future tied to the in dividual's own life was measured by the 'Important Events' technique. Subjects were asked to report the most recent important event or experience in their lives and how far from the present the event had taken place. They were then asked for the next most recent important event prior to the one reported and for another prior to the second reported event. The same questions were then asked in relation to expectations for the future. Kastenbaum found that old persons wrote more "integrated" stories than did the young. The old tended to construct stories with more complex pasts. No signi ficant differences in extension or density were found between the age groups. On the Future Events test only five of the 24 old subjects gave all three of the requested future events. Personal futurity of old subjects was shorter than that of young subjects. When number of events expected in the next three months were compared the young group expected more events to happen. Kastenbaum (19 63) acknowledged the lack of compara bility of the groups. This study, though not properly controlled, did speak to the effects of environment, 24 particularly institutionalization, on old persons, and has implications for clinical practice and program planning for the aged. Perhaps Kastenbaum was correct when he concluded that "elderly people do not necessarily have to be limited in their future outlook" (202). The influence of age and socioeconomic status on future time perspective was investigated by Freeman (1964). Subjects (N=108) were female and lived in Los Angeles. Subjects were divided into three age groups, 16-20; 35-50; 65+. Freeman's intention was to utilize three levels of SES but old upper class women were una vailable and therefore this group was excluded from the analysis. Each respondent was shown four pictures. Two, taken from the TAT were designated as "stress" or "ambiguous stimuli and two, which were photographs, designated as "non-stress" stimuli. Subjects were requested to write stories about each picture. Respondents and raters scored the stories for time extension. The old age group showed the shortest FTP, but the differences between age or socioeconomic groups were not statistically significant. Young and middle age groups exhibited longer extension to the 1 stress1 pictures while the old group showed the shortest extension. 25 A particularly interesting facet of Freeman's (1964) work was her study of "flexibility" of FTP. After com pleting the first set of stories subjects were asked to write an additional but different story for two pictures, one stress and one non-stress. Respondents were asked to make the time period in each story longer. Results of objective (rater) scoring of these protocols showed significant age differences on the stress stimuli. The oldest group appeared to have not extended their stories in time but only made the stories longer. Freeman (1964) made no attempt to explain her findings. Perhaps the failure of old persons to extend the stories was attributable to simple misunderstanding of instruc tions, or perhaps it was attributable to rigidity of response set (Botwinck, 1973). The only other study found which was concerned with changes in time extension (Wohlford, 1966) utilized college students as subjects, and therefore will not be exten sively reviewed here. Wohlford found that extension changed under conditions of varied mood. When young respondents were asked to think of their own death time extension constricted significantly. Negative evaluation of past life, feelings of meaning lessness, of life and the "inability to characterize an immediate and distant future because of the feeling that, 26 for oneself, a future does not exist" (Miller and Lieberman, 1965: 495) was the only factor which distin guished negative from positive outcome groups in a study of the effects of re-location on 45 institutionalized, but psychiatrically and physically unimpaired, women. Negative change was defined as development of serious physical illness, psychological deterioration or death. The age range of this sample was 61-91. Length of in stitutionalization was three months to 15 years. Adaptive capacity, as defined by a battery of psychological tests was not related to outcome. Miller and Lieberman (19 65) labeled the negative attitude towards the future as "depression" but noted that these depressed persons did not "regularly" exhibit symptoms of depression, did not have a lowered activity level, nor was there a correlation with measures of affective state. The authors concluded that this attitude towards time was different from clinical depression and it was "not a simple unitiary variable of mood tone" (496). No analysis was done to determine if length of institutiona lization was related to outcome. Instruments for measuring FTP were not reported. Another way of looking at time extension was to ask how far into the future does an individual project his/ 27 her life span. In their study of life transition points Lowenthal, et al, (1975) counted the number of years projected into the future on a "Life Evaluation Chart." More young than old subjects projected their lives into the eighth decade. Time extension and time orientation were not significantly related, except in the old group. Old persons with short extension showed psychological im pairment (based on a symptoms check list). This was more true of males than females. Long extension in old persons was related to peer rated competency and greater happiness. For young persons long extension was associated with low peer judgments of competence. Lowenthal, et al, (1975) thought that young persons lacking in psychological and social resources might look to the future for amelioration while the older individual, lacking such resources, might resort to reminiscence for relief. The authors concluded that "time projections may have different functional significance at different points in the life course" (138). Time Extension: Subjective Life Expectancy The next step in the examination of time extension is to a direct question concerning life expectancy. Interest 28 in subjective life expectancy (SLE) had been generated by the growth of the death and awareness of death literature during the 1960s. Awareness of one's own finitude has been thought to be a turning point in the time perspective of the aging individual (Neugarten, 1968; Kuhlen, 1968) and a trigger for important developmental tasks of old age (Cumming and Henry, 1961; Butler, 1963). Unfortunately awareness of one's own death and awareness of death of others were confounded in a study of the relationship between high and low awareness of death (AD) and social/solitary activities of old persons (Chellam, 1964). One hundred individuals (age 60-80+) were drawn from 4 30 persons on lists of religious organiza tions. A 'moderate association' of AD with age was found, but no statistical test was reported. A frequency count of activities showed AD to have an inverse relationship to social role activity. High AD persons engaged in more solitary activities and prefered these activities more than did low AD individuals. The best discriminators on Chellam's (1964) AD scale were position on life line, burial plans, projected life expectancy and presence or absence of plans five years into the future. These were all self-referent death 29 awareness items. It was a pity that Chellam also included such items as, frequency of reading obituary notices, and attendence at funerals of friends or relatives. She did not control for socioeconomic status as she thought disengagement (type of activity) was an internal process not mediated by environmental conditions. In a study of subjective life expectancy and future time perspective as predictors of job success in Black hard core unemployed males, Teahan and Kastenbaum (1970) asked 29 subjects, (age range, 21-44) "How long do you expect to live?" (SLE) and "How many good years do you have left?" (191) Men successfully completing the job training program ("stays" mean age, 34) and those not completing ("leaves," mean age, 27) had significantly different SLE. "Stays" predicted a life span approximately 20 years longer than "leaves," although "stays" were about seven years older than "leaves." "Stays" were also more plan-oriented than "leaves." Teahan and Kastenbaum (1970) speculated that their results might represent an "ego deficiency in time binding" (197) which in turn might be a product of a dismal past and a feeling (perhaps realistic) of helplessness concerning power to effect the future. However since both 30 groups,"stays”and "leaves" appeared to come from a single disadvantaged socioeconomic class the question must be raised as to why and how one group of respondents managed to incorporate the middle class ethic while the other group did not manage to do so. The authors suggested that research into early childhood experiences of "stays " and "leave" might provide some answers to this question. Whatever the explanation for Teahan and Kastenbaum's (1970) results other studies also indicate that short SLE and high death concern were correlated with short future anticipation (Dickstein and Blatt, 1966; Wohlford, 1966) . More recently research has focused on the relation ship of SLE to demographic variables. Age, ethnicity and sex and their relationship to anticipated and preferred length of life was investigated by Reynolds and Kalish (1974). Four hundred and thirty- four subjects grouped by age, 20-39; 40-59; 60+, and ethnicity, Black, White, Mexican and Japanese, were in terviewed. All subjects were Los Angeles community residents. Quota sampling was utilized. Median age to which all subjects, male and female, expected to live was 75, although they all wished to live to 80 years. 31 The middle aged were least likely to expect or to want to live beyond 90, young persons were more likely to hope and expect to live that long. Men were more optimistic and hopeful of achieving a 90+ life span than were women. Black respondents projected the longest expected and hoped for life spans. Mexican Americans pro jected the shortest. Reynolds and Kalish (1974) had no explanation for their findings. They offered the best possible critique of their study when they wrote of their failure to include life satisfaction as a variable. They thought it possible that satisfaction with present life, as compared to past life, (Bortner and Hulsch, 1972) might help account for the surprising ethnic differences in prediction and hopes. A recent study (Marshall, 1975) investigated the relationship of awareness of finitude (SLE) to age and age-at-death of parents and siblings. Subjects were 68 healthy, middle to upper middle class citizens living in a retirement community. Age range was 45-96. Mean age was 80. Marshall utilized a fixed choice question which had been part of Chellam1s (1964) "awareness of death" scale. Respondents were asked, 32 Which one of these would you say about your own future? 1. I shall be around for some time yet: more than 10 years. 2. I have a little while longer: oh, at least five to 10 years. 3. Not too much longer: less than five years. 4. The end may be any time now. (118) In the data analysis categories three and four were col lapsed into a single level. Fifty of the 68 subjects, or 74%, gave "codeable answers." SLE was "strongly" associated to age, in that older respondents predicted less time left before death. SLE was even more strongly associated with age-at-death of parents. This effect was strongest in the middle (7 5— 84) age group. When age was statistically controlled the relationship of SLE to age-at-death of same sex sibling and to perceived.' health was not significant. Marshall (1975) concluded that awareness of death was not a simple function of age but rather was a function of a "social comparison process" (122). He suggested that in studies of old persons SLE be utilized as a control variate instead of chronological age. The design of Marshall's study was a 3X3 matrix, involving three levels of SLE and three levels of each of the other variates. Data were reported in percentages 33 which tended to disguise the number of cells of N=l. Although Marshall mentioned that significant correlations were obtained between the fixed choice question and two other measures of SLE, (life line technique and the direct question technique), these correlations were not reported. Finally, when a chi-square analysis of the data on age and SLE was done the "strong" association became a trend (10). Coherence Techniques for studying coherence utilized with young persons are not viable for use with old adults. No studies actually concerned with coherence in old persons were found in the literature search. Studies of Planning of Old Persons Planning may be considered to include all four dimensions of FTP: coherence, orientation, extension and density. Planning is difficult to measure and few studies have been conducted. This review will look at studies of the behavior of planning, not at the ability to plan. Spence (1968) investigated the relationship between planning, desire for change and adjustment to aging. Two hundred and twenty-six community residents, over 6 0 years 34 old, were asked "How much do you plan ahead the things you will be doing next week or the week after?" and "If you could change your life right now, how would you change it" (180) . Subjects were divided into four groups on the basis of responses to these questions, planners desiring change, planners not desiring change, non-planners desiring change and non-planners not desiring change. Adjustment was measured on a seven question morale scale. Scores on the scale were dichotomized into high and low satisfaction. Planning was found to be positively related to satisfaction while desiring change was negatively related. The relationship of socioeconomic status to satisfaction was independent of the other factors. No sex differences were found. Planning and satisfaction was strongly related for respondents under 75 but the relationship disappeared for those 75 or older. Those not desiring change were the most satisfied in all groups and a general increase in satisfaction with age was found for non-planners not desiring change. "Temporal goal structure" was considered a form of planning by Zibbell (1970) . Temporal goal structure (TGS) included length of time necessary to complete an activity, amount of preparation required for the activity, 35 length of extension of planning for the activity, and degree of future orientation in the subject's motivation, ii©3. , immediate gratification only verses planning for a future goal. Information was collected in an interview. Zibbell thought that the relationship between TGS and FTP would influence life satisfaction. The Future Events Test (Kastenbaum, 1963) , in a slightly modified form, was utilized to measure FTP. Range, or distance between the data of the interview and the furthest event offered, was zero to two years, the mean was 12 weeks and an average of 1.86 events were presented. Life Satisfaction was measured by the LSI-B (Neugarten, Havighurst, and Tobin, 1961). The battery of tests was administered to 50 subjects, over 65, living in the community who had been retired for one year or more and who were working no more than half time (20 hours per week). Their mean age was 74; mean education level was 12 years. Zibbell found no significant relationship between FTP and TGS. Men had longer term goals than did women and married persons (mostly male) had greater TGS. Activity was related to life satisfaction for women but for men health was a more important factor. Congruence between FTP and TGS was correlated with life satisfaction only 36 for unhealthy men. Zibbell's sampling strategy went haywire because not enough subjects were originally found, but it was perhaps in respect to his TGS instrument that this study was most vulnerable to criticism. From a reading of sample pro tocols presented it was impossible for this present author to understand how the interview was rated. This was however an admirable attempt to deal with the issue of life stage rather than merely chronological age. Two studies (Schonfield, 1973; Schonfield and Hooper, 1973) compared daily activities and committed time for the next week with a self rated measure of "successful aging." Activities were collected in diary form and rated by the experimenters on an active-passive scale. In the first study (Schonfield, 1973) 100 women living in the community (Canadian) were interviewed. This group was called the "random sample." Mean age of the sample was 72 years, age range 65-91. Future activity was found to be significantly related to ease of transportation, happiness, health and to "challenging" activities. Low day to day activity was negatively associated with age and future commitments positively correlated with socioeconomic status. In the second study (Schonfield and Hooper, 197 3) 37 Schonfield compared four new groups, again, all female, to the random sample. The groups consisted of nursing home patients (40), persons receiving Meals-on-Wheels (25), residents in old age homes (20), and retired pro fessionals (15 teachers). Mean ages were 80, 81, 76, and 70 respectively. The same measurement devices were utilized. Low day to day activities were associated more with infirmity than with age. Retired professionals had higher future commitment scores and higher ratings on successful aging than any of the other groups. Through all the studies reported in this review the same difficulties were apparent. Measuring devices, sampling procedures, sample size, and age groupings varied enormously. Caution must be utilized in comparing results from different measurement instruments (Ruiz, Reivich and Krauss, 1967). But perhaps the last word on FTP and old persons belongs to Libow (1974) who studied predictors of mortality in an eleven year follow up study of 47 (mean age, 70, at time one) healthy men. One of the two behavioral variables which predicted mortality most accurately was "highly organized, pur poseful, complex and variable daily behavior" (82). This 38 factor, combined with non-smoking, classified 80% of the survivors. Libow (1974) concluded that a cause and effect relationship between high levels of functioning and survival was implied, although the direction was unknown. If better functioning did lead to greater survival then there are important implications for preventative medicine. Summary Future time perspective was divided into four com ponents, direction or orientation, density, coherence and extension. Older persons tended to think more about the past than did young persons and institutionalized subjects were more past oriented than older subjects living in the com munity. However, time orientation appeared to be more a function of the individuals life situation than of age. Older subjects with future orientation were involved in more meaningful activities. Time orientation was not related to health status but was related to psychological health. Old persons were more present orientated than young subjects, which indicated that a loss of future orienta tion does not necessarily imply a retreat into the past. 39 Decline in future orientation of old people might ex plain the lowered control over impulse life found by some investigators. The inability to delay gratification was thought to be an appropriate response to a shortening life span by one author while another author thought it indicated pathology. Young and old subjects evaluated the past and future differently. Young persons tended to judge the past more harshly and to look to the future more brightly. Old women tended to see the future as most negative. Most persons when asked to identify the best period of their lives choose their present stage. Time tended to lose its density for old persons. Studies of time extension were divided into two parts, those utilizing projective techniques and those utilizing a direct approach (SLE). Old persons did not seem to lose the ability to conceptualize the future, though environment appeared to influence the ability to imagine a personal future. The inability to project oneself into the future was associated with physical and mental illness. No association between time extension and socio economic status was found, but Black subjects projected longer life spans for themselves than did members of other 40 ethnic groups. Awareness of death was related to less effective functioning in the present and shortened anticipation of the future. Men were more likely to be optimistic about long life than were women. One author thought SLE was a function of a social comparison process. Time extension was not related to planning, but planning was correlated with life satisfaction except in the very old. CHAPTER III METHODOLOGY Sample The population from which this sample was drawn was the California Retired Teachers.Association (CRTA), Los Angeles Division LAD), which had approximately 2200 members. The sample consisted of 61 retired women who were members of CRTA-LAD living within the Los Angeles area and who had agreed to be interviewed. All Ss were living in their own homes and were capable of caring for them selves. Their ages ranged from 60-84 years with a mean age of 72.7 and a median age of 72.4. They had retired between the ages of 46 and 6 6 (X = 62.3; median = 63.7) and were thus one to 21 years from their date of retire ment (X = 10.4; median = 10), Seven persons (11,4%) had incomes below $5,999, 16 (26.2%) below $8,999, eight persons (13.1%) had incomes below $11,999 and eight (13,1%) below $14,999. Twenty- two persons (36.1%) reported incomes above $15,000. For women who were married these figures included the income 41 42 of both partners. Four women (6.6%) were working part time, one (1.6%) was working full time and 17 (27.9%) were doing volunteer work. Thirty-nine (63.9%) were completely retired. Before retirement 43 (70%) had been teachers, four (6.6%) had been counselors; one S (1.6%) had been a vice principal and four (6.6%) had been school principals. Nine Ss had held such jobs as nurse, librarian, or foreign language coordinator. Twenty-nine (47.5%) women held bachelor degrees, 25 (41%) had masters degrees and one (1.6%) had a Ph.D. Six Ss (9.8%) had a Normal School certificate, an R.N. or no degree. This sample tended to be unmarried (N=44, 72.1%). This included the never married (N=18, 29.5%), the divorced (N=13f 21.3%) and the widowed (N=13, 21.3%). Only 17 Ss (27.9%) were married at the time of this study and one of these was not living with her spouse. Sixteen Ss (26,2%) were living with their husbands, 35 (57.4%) lived alone and 10 (16.4%) lived with either a child, a sibling, a friend or a paid companion. In summary, this was a well educated, relatively affluent group of women who had spent a major portion of their adult lives as agents of the dominant culture. At 43 the time of this study the majority of these women were not married, lived alone and had retired from the world of work, either paid or unpaid. No question was asked concerning race. However, it appeared to the E that 60 S were Caucasian and one might have been Black. As 100 usable questionnaires were returned it was thought desirable to investigate possible differences between the interview and non-interview groups. T tests of the difference between means were run on LSI-A scores, age and years from retirement. On the LSI-'A scale the mean of the interview group (N=61) was 11.61; the mean of the non-interview group (N=39) was 11.18. The difference was not significant. The mean age of the interview group was 72,75; mean age of the non interview group was 76.46. This was significant at the ,05 level. Mean number of years from retirement of the interview group was 10.40 while mean years from retirement of the non-interview group was 14.13. This difference was significant at the .01 level. Data for these three t tests are presented in Tables 1, 2, and 3. Chi squares were computed to determine if there was any relationship between agreeing/not agreeing to be in terviewed and income level, (Table 4) health status (Table 5)f and marital status, (Table 6). 44 Table 1 T Test of Difference Between Means on LSI-A Scale of Subjects Agreeing and Not Agreeing To Be Interviewed Group N Mean SD SE t value Interview 61 11.61 3.14 .40 Non-Interview 39 11.18 3.71 .59 .54 NS df = 98 g All values rounded to two decimal places 45 Table 2 T Test of the Difference Between Means of Age of Interview and Non-Interview Groups Group N Mean SD SE t value Interview 61 72.75 6.29 .81 -2.50** Non-Interview 37 76.46 8.30 L36 df = 96 cl All values rounded to two decimal places **p -01, two-tailed test 46 Table 3 T Test of the Difference Between Means of Number of Years From Retirement of Interview and Non-Interview Groups Group N Mean SD SE t value Interview' 60 10.40 5.56 .72 -2.67** Non-Interview 38 14.13 8.26 1.34 df = 96 cl All values rounded to two decimal places **p<C* .01, two-tailed test 47 Table 4 Relationship of Interview (N=61)/No Interview (N=36) To Income Level Income Level 0- 2999 3000- 5999 6000“ 8999 9000- 11999 12000- 14999 15000+ Interview 1 6 16 8 8 22 No Interview 1 3 8 8 5 11 y.2 = i.69 df = 5 P *7 -05 48 Table 5 Relationship of Interview (N=61)/No Interview (N=39) To Health Status Health Status * Excellent Good Fair Poor Interview 23 26 11 1 37.7% 42.6% 18.0% 1.6% No Interview 7 16 15 1 17.9% 41.0% 38.5% 2.6% 2 = 7.03 df = 3 p ^ .05 49 Table 6 Relationship of Interview (N=61)/No Interview (N=38) To Marital Status Marital Status Married Divorced Widowed Never Married Interview 17 13 13 18 No Interview 10 2 13 14 2 = 5.82 df = 3 p ^ .05 50 No significant relationshipswere found between in terview group membership and income level or marital status. The relationship to health status approached significance (7^ = 7.03, df =3, p = .07) with the relationship in the expected direction. That is, those refusing to be interviewed considered themselves to be less healthy than those persons agreeing to be interviewed. Variation in the size of the Ns was due to answers omitted by the Ss. The group refusing to be interviewed was older. They were further away from their data of retirement and tended to consider themselves as less healthy than did the group which agreed to be interviewed. Planning Questionnaire Items three and four under the operational defini tions section of this chapter show the questions and state ments utilized to establish planning scores. All Ss answered the same items asked by the same interviewer which, hopefully, minimized bias of both questionnaire and interviewer. An instrument to measure long term planning was una vailable; a questionnaire had to be devised. The issue was what questions would best elicit, from Ss, statements 51 of plans for the future. Taking a question on future ambitions utilized in a study of centegenarians (Costa and Kastenbaum, 1967) and extrapolating from a short term planning question (Spence, 1968), from the Future Events Test (Kastenbaum, 1963) and from Future Diary (Schonfield, 1973) a series of possible items were formulated. These items were then used in interviews with 10 persons. From the information gained in the interviews the items were revised and a preliminary planning questionnaire constructed This questionnaire was utilized in a pilot study conducted on 10 retired women, over 65 years of age, who were volunteers at the Andrus Gerontology Center at the University of Southern California. This group was chosen because of availability and presumed similarity of educa tional background to the sample on which the final study was conducted. Volunteers at the Andrus Center tend to be active, educated senior citizens. The pilot study enabled the E to refine the planning items. The questionnaire was based on the premise (Costa and Kastenbaum, 1967; Spence, 1968; Schonfield, 1973) that the best way to find out what plans people had was to ask and to aid their recall with prompts and probes. For example, after Ss had responded to the statement "I am interested in knowing what you plan for the near future" the following 52 prompts were utilized. Do you have any other plans or projects connected with family...friends... hobbies...vacations...holidays...clubs... work? During the pilot study it was found that these prompts did elicit further responses as did the repeated questions on plans in the distant future . Responses to the questions cannot be taken as an absolute measure of extension of plans per se, but rather as a measure of extension of plans which an S chose to tell the E. It is probable that responses were influenced by the impression the E made on the S, on the S's willingness to reveal plans and therefore a piece of her life to the E and that both of these were influenced by the Sfs personality. During the pilot study no difficulty was found in eliciting responses to questions concerning plans for the distant future. Several problems were encountered during the interviews for the present study. Some subjects extended the near future to three to five years and then responded to items concerning the distant future with com ments as "only what I've already mentioned." It thus appeared that for some old persons near and distant future were not differentiated. Such responses were 53 scored as no plans in the distant future. A few of the older subjects reacted to questions about the distant future with a laugh and such remarks as "My dear, at my age, that's absurd"; "What a foolish question." One younger S replied that she was too busy to think about such things. She paused, thought a moment and said "maybe that's why I'm so busy." At the beginning of the interviews Ss often expressed the fear that the E was going to ask personal things. When the E explained what the interview was about most Ss stated they didn't consider their plans too personal and frequently went to fetch their diaries which they made no effort to keep from the E's view. From a quick glance at the appointment books it appeared to the E that Ss were reading off their commitments. It was not the interest of this study to investigate whether or not plans were carried out. Procedure Permission to obtain and utilize the CRTA-LAD membership list was obtained by vote at the December, 197 5, meeting. Two hundred and twenty-five names of females were randomly drawn from the LAD membership list. Letters 54 requesting participation in the study (Appendix A), a questionnaire asking for demographic data (Appendix B), and the Life Satisfaction Index A (Appendix C) were then mailed. Stamped, self-addressed envelopes were enclosed for the return of the materials. One hundred usable questionnaires and LSI-As were returned. Sixty-one persons agreed to be interviewed, 39 persons did not agree. Ss who had agreed to be interviewed were then con tacted by telephone and an appointment made. All Ss, except one, were interviewed in their homes. One S was interviewed at USC. Each interview took between 3 0 minutes and one hour. Interviews took place on all seven days of the week during March, April, and May, 1976. All Ss were interviewed by the E. Protocols were administered in the following order, Seven Day Diary (Appendix E), Planning Questionnaire (Appendix F) and Life Satisfaction Index B (Appendix D). Operational Definitions and Instrumentation 1. Subjective Life Expectancy (SLE). SLE was measured by the question "In thinking about the future, how many years do you expect to live?" Teahan and Kastenbaum, (1970) and Lowenthal, et al. (1975) utilized similar 55 approaches. Responses to the question discriminated between groups in both studies. 2. Number of good years left (NGL). Number of good years left was measured by the question "My best estimate of the number of good years I have left is . " This question was taken from the Teahan and Kastenbaum (1970) questionnaire. 3. Extension into the near future. The furthest point in time mentioned by the respondant in reply to the statement, "Now that we have talked about your week I am interested in knowing what you plan for the future." 4. Extension into the distant future. Either the respondant mentioned goals or plans for the distant future or she did not. Data was gathered in response to the following questions: a. "Now Ifd like to know what thoughts, if any, you have had about your more distant future. Do you have any goals or plans?" b. "Do you have any long term goals for yourself?" c. "Is there anything we haven't mentioned that you would like to accomplish during the rest of your life?" 5. Future commitments (PI). A Seven Day Future Diary (Schonfield, 1973) was utilized to record reported 56 commited time. S's were asked to tell the E about any plans they had for the coming week. S's estimates of traveling time were included in commited hours. Scoring consisted of adding up the number of commited hours reported. 6. Subjective amount of planning. How much a person thought they planned; gathered in response to the question "How much do you plan ahead the things you will be doing next week or the week after?" (Spence, 1968) , a. Not at all b. A little c. Quite a lot 7. Life satisfaction. The Neugarten, Havighurst and Tobin Life Satisfaction Indices A and B (LSI-A and LSI-B), The assumption underlying the Neugarten, Havighurst and Tobin Life Satisfaction Indices A and B was that the individual was the best judge of his own "quality of life" (Neugarten, et al., 1961). The scales came out of a large study of an urban, middle class, middle American sample. The two indices were developed from and validated against a Life Satisfaction Rating Scale (LSR) which was 57 itself based on interview data. LSR was not related to age or to socioeconomic status in the original sample. The LSI-A is a self report instrument consisting of 20 items. Each item is scored one for the "correct" response and zero for any other response. LSI-A correlated .58 with LSR. Subsequent investigation with an rural sample obtained similar validity coefficients (Wood, Wyle, and Schaefer, 1969). The developers of LSI-A thought that five components of well-being, 1. zest, 2. resolution and fortitude, 3. congruence between desired and achieved goals, 4. positive self concept, and 5. mood tone, were being measured. Later a factor analytic study of LSI-A (Adams, 1969) identified only four components; zest, con gruence and mood tone reappeared but the fourth factor was "uninterpretable." LSI-B was designed to be administered orally during an interview. It contains 12 items rated on a three point scale. LSI-B correlated .59 with LSR. For the present study LSI-B was utilized intact, LSI-A was shortened to exclude three items relating to the future. These two scales, LSI-A and LSI-B are the most frequently used Life Satisfaction Indices in research on 58 aging. Data Analysis The major interest of this study was in the magnitude of the relationship of subjective life expectancy (SLE) and future commitments (PI) to life satisfaction, with age used as a control variate and with socioeconomic status held constant. SLE and PI were independent variates, LS (represented by LSI-A and LSI-B) was the dependent variable and age was an independent variate used for con trol purposes. The statistical procedure which provided the best- method of answering the above question was multiple re gression. According to Kerlinger and Pedhazer (1973) The a priori ordering approach... is appropriate for the analysis of data of non-experimental research. (197) Therefore the E decided the order in which variables would be entered into the regression. Age, considered a control variate was entered first; SLE was entered before PI on the assumption that the individual's ability to conceptualize a future affects overt behavior towards that future (Lewin, 19 42). 59 Age and SLE were gathered as continuous data, but previous research had indicated that there is a change in a person's subjective and objective relation to time at approximately age 75 (Spence, 1968; Schonfield, 1973) and therefore, for control purposes, age was divided into two groups, 60-74 years and 75-84 years. SLE was divided into three categories in order to retain data from persons refusing to predict SLE. The categories were short ex tension (zero to seven years), long extension (eight plus years) and no extension (non-predictors). PI scores were retained as continuous data. Scores of LSI-A were computed by counting the number of responses in the correct direction. These scores were treated as continuous data. The LSI-B scale gave values of zero to two for each answer. Values were added and total scores retained as continuous data. Although the Pearson correlation coefficient of LSI-A with LSI-B '(N=61) was significant at the .001 level its • value was only .467. This degree of relationship appeared insufficient to draw the conclusion that the two scales were measuring the same aspects of life satisfaction. The scales, LSI-A and LSI-B were therefore kept as separate dependent variables and regression analyses were performed for each. 60 Another question of interest in this study was whether "number of good years left" (NGL) was a better predictor of life satisfaction that was SLE. Regression analyses substituting NGL for SLE were run. As knowledge of the degree of relationship among the independent variates and of each of these to the dependent variables was desired a correlation matrix was generated. In all, four different regression analyses were done. These are summarized in Table 7. To determine if there were any significant interac-~ . tions between PI and SLE and PI and NGL and the two life satisfaction scales, four 3 X 2 ANOVAs were calculated. SLE and NGL retained their original three categories and PI was divided at the median into two groups. Table 8 summarizes the data transformations for the regression analyses and the ANOVAs. Chi squares were computed for the two life satisfac tion scales dicotomized at the median and extension into the near future and extension into the distant future. Further questions investigated by chi square analysis were: the relationship between future commitments and subjective amount of planning; the relationship of health status to number of good years left and to subjective 61 Table 7 Summary of Regression Analyses 1. Age, SLE, PI LSI-A la. Age, SLE, PI LSI-B 2. Age, NGL, PI LSI-A 2a. Age, NGL, PI LSI-B 62 Table 8 Summary of Data Transformations Regression Analysis 1. Age — two categories 60 - 74 years 75 - 84 years 2. Subjective Life Expectancy (SLE) — three categories Short extension (0-7 years) Long extension (8+ years) Non-extension (refused to predict) 3. Number of Good Years Left (NGL) — three categories Short extension (0-7 years) Long extension (8+ years) Non-extension (refused to predict) ANOVA 1. Subjective Life Expectancy (SLE) -- three categories 2. Number of Good Years Left (NGL) -- three categories 3. Planning (Pi) — two categories, divided at the median 63 life expectancy. Finally, chi squares were computed between the two life satisfaction indices and data obtained by question naire . Data groupings for all chi square analyses are reported in Table 9. Lastly, an item analysis of LSI-A was done. Alpha level for all tests of significance was established at .05. The data from the study were analyzed by the IBM 37 0 computer at the University of Southern California Computer Center. The computer program SPSS was utilized for the calculation of all the statistical tests. 64 Table 9 Data Groupings for Chi Square Analyses 1. Extension into the near future. Data originally in six categories were collapsed into three; a. no extension, less than three months; b. short exten sion. . - three months to one year; c. long extension more than one year. 2. Extension into the distant future. The majority of respondents refused to define the distant future in terms of months or years. Therefore this became a dichotomous variable, ie, either the subject men tioned goals and/or plans for the distant future or she did not. Questionnaire Data Demographic 1. Income level - originally six categories reduced to five. The lowest category, 0-2999 had only one respondent. Therefore, this category was added into the next highest. 2. Years from retirement - gathered as interval data and grouped into four categories; 1-5 years; 6-10 years; 11-15 years; 16-21 _________ ; ____________ Years. _______________ 65 Table 9 (Con’t) 3. Retirement status - data were collaspsed from four groups into two groups. Completely retired remained a separate category and working, part time, full time and volunteering became a single category. 4. Marital status - remained in the original four groups. 5. Living situation - data originally in six categories were reduced to two groups, living alone and not living alone. 6. Transportation - originally in seven groups was re duced to two categories of self-driven and other. Questionnaire Data-Subjective 1. Subjective amount of planning - original three categories reduced to high and low. "Not at all" which contained one S was added to "a little" and "quite a lot" became high. 2. Subjective health rating - originally four groups reduced to three; excellent, good and fair/poor. The single S in "poor" was added to the next highest category. CHAPTER IV FINDINGS This chapter presents the results of data analyses of 1) the relationship between subjective life expectancy and future commitments to life satisfaction; 2) the rela tionship between number of good years left and future com mitments to life satisfaction, with age utilized as a con trol variate and socioeconomic status held constant. A correlation matrix for these variates is presented. Further results show the 3) extent of interaction between subjective life expectancy and future commitments on life satisfaction; and the 4) amount of interaction between number of good years left and future commitments on life satisfaction. The relationship of 5) extension into the near future and 6) extension into the distant future to life satisfaction is also demonstrated. Tests of relationship between life satisfaction and demographic and subjective questionnaire data are pre sented. Finally, an item analysis of Life Satisfaction Index A is reported. 66 67 Multiple Regression of Age, Subjective Life Expectancy, and Future Commitments on Life Satisfaction Scales A and B Subjective life expectancy, entered into the regres sion analysis after age and before future commitments, made a significant contribution to the explained variance of both LSI-A and LSI-B. Both age and Pi contributed 2 very little to the overall R . F tests for the multiple regression of Age, SLE and PI to the two life satisfaction scales were significant at the .05 level. Results appear in Table 10. Based on the above data the following hypothesis was accepted. There is a significant relationship between SLE and Pi to life satisfaction when age is utilized as a control variate and socioeconomic status is held constant. Multiple Regression of Age, Number of Good Years Left, Future Commitments on Life Satisfaction Scales A and B Number of good years left was entered into the regres sion analyses in the place of Subjective Life Expectancy. The overall F tests for the regression of age, NGL, Pi on both life satisfaction scales were significant at the .05 level, (See Table 1L) 68 Table 10 Multiple Regressions of Subjective Life Expectancy,an<^ Future Commitments on LSI-A and LSI-B With Age Utilized As a Control Variate LSI-A Variable R2 F Age .003 0.18 SLE .155 3.49* PI .175 2.97* LSI-B Age .009 0.53 SLE .180 4.32** PI .200 3.50* *p .05 **p .01 69 Table 11 Multiple Regression Analyses For Number of Good Years Left, and Future Commitments on LSI-A and LSI-B With Age Utilized As a Control Variate LSI-A 2 Variable R F Age .003 0.18 NGL .2 60 6.69** PI .279 5.41** LSI-B Age .009 0.53 NGL .175 4. 03* PI .183 3.14* *p .05 **p .01 70 Therefore the following hypothesis was not rejected: There is a significant relationship between NGL and PI to life satisfaction when age is utilized as a control variate and socioeconomic status is held constant. When NGL replaced SLE in the regression on LSI-A the amount of explained variance increased, as did the overall F value which was significant at the .01 level. This was not the case with the regression on LSI-B where substitu tion of SLE by NGL slightly decreased the amount of explained variance. Correlational Data Inspection of the correlation matrix generated from variates utilized in the regression analyses revealed the following information. Age showed a strong relationship to years from re tirement, and a moderate negative correlation with future commitments. Age also showed moderate relationships to the coded variables of number of good years left and subjective life expectancy. A miniscule negative rela tionship between chronological age and the LSI-A scale and a low negative relationship with the B scale was found. Years from retirement showed low inverse correlations with both LSI-A and LSI-B and moderate correlations with 71 future commitments, NGL and SLE. Correlations between future commitments and both NGL and SLE were low, as were the relationshipsbetween com mitments and the two life satisfaction scales. These data are found in Table 12. Interaction Between Subjective Life Expectancy, Future Commitments and Life Satisfaction Scales A and B No significant interactions were found between SLE and PI. Data are presented in Table 13. Therefore the following hypothesis was not confirmed: There is a significant interaction between SLE and PI in their relation ship to Life Satisfaction. Interaction Between Number of Good Years Left, Future Commitments and Life Satisfaction Scales A and B No significant interactions were found between NGL and Pi in their relationship to life satisfaction. The results of the ANOVAs are presented in Table 14. Therefore the following hypothesis was not confirmed: There is a significant interaction between NGL and Pi in their rela tionship to Life Satisfaction. 72 Table 12 Correlation Matrix of Variables Utilized In Regression Analyses Age Years From Retirement Future Com mitments 1 NGL 2 3 SLE 4 LSI-A LSI-B Age .818 -.499 .361, -.429 .361/ -.397 -.083 -.209 Years From Retirement -.434 .350/ -.414 .281/ -.287 -.110 -.033 Future Commitments -.070/ .158 .000, .177 .111 .161 NGL 1 Dummy 2 Variables -v650 .703, -.398 -.517, .801 -.171 .456 -.390 .371 SLE 3 Dummy Variables 4 -.553 -.191 .359 -.415 .329 LSI-A .470 LSI-B 73 Table 13 ANOVA: Subjective Life Expectancy, Future Commitments, LSI-A and LSI-B LSI-A df Sum of Squares F SLE 2 73.23 3.97* PI 1 0.96 0.11 SLE X Pi 2 5.87 0.32 LSI-B SLE 2 161.8 6 6.37** PI 1 10.27 0.81 SLE X PI 2 34.81 1.37 *p < .05 **p ■<. .01 74 Table 14 ANOVA: Number of Good Years Left, Future Commitments, LSI-A and LSI-B LSI-A df Sum* of Squares F NGL 2 133.60 8.51** PI 1 1.17 0.15 NGL X PI 2 21.39 1.36 LSI-B NGL 2 157.83 6,16** PI 1 13.65 1.07 NGL X PI 2 33.81 1.32 **p < .01 75 Subjective Life Expectancy and Life Satisfaction Scales A and B. Post Hoc Analyses In order to determine which of the means or combina tions of means differed significantly from each other post hoc comparisons were performed. The Scheffe (S) method of multiple comparisons which is appropriate in cases with groups having unequal numbers of subjects was utilized (Glass and Stanley, 1970). All possible contrasts between sample means were of interest. The size of N, means and standard deviations for LSI-A are presented in Table 15. Table 16 contains the ANOVA statistics. For LSI-A the means of the groups were, 10.37, no extension; 10.42 short extension and 12.64, long extension. Comparisons between individual means were not signi ficant. The contrast between the mean of long extension and the average of no and short '.extension was significant at the .05 level. The group means for LSI-B were, 16.13, no extension; 13.2 5 short extension and 17.57 long extension. The con trast between short and long extension was significant at the .05 level as was the difference between long extension and the average of no and short extension. No other com parison reached significance level. Table 17 presents the 76 Table 15 Means and Standard Deviations on LSI-A For No-Extension, Short Extension, and Long Extension of Subjective Life Expectancy Standard df Mean Deviation No Short Long 16 12 33 10.37 10.42 12.64 3.16 4.01 2.42 77 Between Within Table 16 ANOVA: LSI-A and Subjective Life Expectancy df SS F 2 76.25 4.30* 58 514.30 *p .05 78 Table 17 Means and Standard Deviations on LSI-B For No-Extension, Short Extension and Long Extension of Subjective Life Expectancy Standard df Mean Deviation No Short Long 16 16.13 12 13.25 33 17.57 3.50 4.39 3.30 79 Ns, means and standard deviations. Table 18 contains the ANOVA results. Therefore, predictors of long Subjective Life Expectancy differed significantly on life satisfaction (LSI-A and LSI-B) from the average of those predicting no or short extension. Only on the B scale was there a significant difference in life satisfaction between the short and long SLE groups. Number of Good Years Left and Life Satisfaction Scales A and B. Post Hoc Analyses For LSI-A the means were: no extension, 9.38; short extension, 10.76 and long extension, 13.00. The contrasts between the single means of, no and long ex tension, and between short and long extension were signi ficant at the .05 level. The contrasts between the mean of no extension and the average of short and long ex tension and between the mean of long extension and the average of no and short extension reached the .05 level. Thus, all comparisons were significant except for the dif ference between no and short extension. The means of the groups for LSI-B were no extension, 15.85; short extension, 14.06; and long extension, 17.81. The means of the short and long extension groups were 80 Table 18 ANOVA: LSI-B and Subjective Life Expectancy df ss F Between Within 2 165.71 58 744.07 6.46** **p< .01 81 significantly different and long extension differed significantly from the average of short and long extension (all at .05 level). Tables 19 and 21 show the means, and standard deviations. Tables 2 0 and 2 2 contains the ANOVA statistics. In summary, a significant difference in life satisfac tion (LSI-A and LSI-B) was found between short and long predictors of NGL. Long predictors also differed significantly on both scales from the average of those predicting no or short extension. No difference in life satisfaction was found between those who made short pre dictions of NGL and those who refused to make any pre dictions . Extension of Future Commitments Into The Near Future and Life Satisfaction Scales A and B Extension of goals and/or plans into the near future was significantly related to scores on both life satisfac tion scales. Table 23 contains the data from the chi square analyses. Inspection of the data showed that it was the middle range of extension, i*e., three months to less than one year, which contributed most to the relation ship. Thus the hypothesis, there is a significant relation ship between near future commitments and life satisfactions 82 Group Table 19 Means and Standard Deviations on LSI-A For No Extension, Short Extension and Long Extension of Number of Good Years Left N Mean Standard Deviation No Short Long 13 17 31 9.38 10.76 13.00 3.17 3.27 2.32 83 Table 20 ANOVA: LSI-A and Number of Good Years Left Source df MS F Between 2 68.21 8.71** Within 58 7.83 * * p . 01 84 Table 21 Means and Standard Deviations on LSI-B For No Extension, Short Extension and Long Extension of Number of Good Years Left df Mean Standard Deviation No 13 15.85 3.53 Short 17 14.06 4.16 Long 31 17.81 3.29 85 Between Within Table 22 ANOVA: LSI-B and Number of Good Years Left df MS F 2 79.15 6.11** 58 12.96 **p< .01 86 Table 23 Relationship of LSI-A and LSI-B To Extension Into Near Future LSI-A abc Group Extension 0 - 2.9 months Low 15. 0 50.0 3 - 11.9 months 13 43.3 1 yeart 2 6.7 Total 30 49.2 High 6 19.4 20 64.5 5 16.1 31 50.8 LSI-B cde 17. 53.1 32 52.5 12 37.5 Low High 29 47.5 21 72.4 13.8 13.8 a Y 2 = 6.61 df = 2 d "^ 2 = 10.52 ’ p <. .05 p < .01 87 was supported. Extension of Goals and/or Plans Into The Distant Future and Life Satisfaction Scales A and B Table 24 presents the findings from chi square tests relating extension of goals and/or plans into the distant future and LSI-A and LSI-B. The relationship of extension into the distant future and life satisfaction was significant on both scales. Results were in the expected direction, i*e., persons who had goals or plans were more likely to have high life satisfaction than were those persons who did not have distant goals and/or plans. The following hypothesis therefore was accepted: There is a significant relationship between extension into the distant future and life satisfaction. Relationship Between LSI'-A and LSI-B and Questionnaire Data It was of interest to see if profiles of persons high and low in life satisfaction could be extracted from the data. Therefore the relationship between each of the life satisfaction scales and the following demographic variables were investigated with chi square analyses. 88 Table 2 4 Relationship of Extension No Extension of Goals and/or Plans Into the Distant Future to LSI-A and LSI-B „ , abc LSI-A Group Extension Total Yes No 12 18 30 Low 40.0 60.0 49.2 21 10 31 High 67.7 32.3 50.8- cdp LSI-B - .. „ , 11 21 32 Low 34.4 65.6 52.5 22 7 29 High 75.9 24.1 47.5 a 7^ 2 = 3.67 bp < .05 cdf = 1 d” )£2 = 8.94 ep <.01 89 1. Income level not significant 2. Years from retirement not significant 3. Retirement status not significant 4. Marital status not significant 5. Living situation not significant 6. Availability of transport not significant No significant relationships between demographic data and life satisfaction were found. Explanations of data grouping were reported in Table 9. The results of the chi square analyses are presented in Tables 25 through 30. Subjective Variates No significant relationship between subjective amount of planning and life satisfaction, on either scale, was found (See Table 31). Subjective ratings of health had a highly significant relationship to life satisfaction on the B scale but not on LSI-A. The reason for this result was not obvious. A possible explanation might lie in the slightly different nature of the two life satisfaction scales. Data are pre sented in Table 32. 90 Table 25 Relationship of LSI-A and LSI-B To Income Level - T ,abc LSI-A Group Income Level Total 0 - 6000 9000- 12,GOO- 5999 8,999 11,999 14, 999 15,000+ 4 7 5 4 10 30 Low 13.3 23.3 16.7 13.3 33.3 49. 2 3 9 3 4 12 31 High 9.7 29.0 9.7 12.9 38.7 50.8 LSI-BCde 5 8 5 3 11 32 Low 15. 6 25.0 15.6 9.4 34.4 52.5 2 8 3 5 11 29 High 6.9 27.6 10.3 17.2 37.9 47.5 61 100. 0 a X 2 = 1.06 e P > .05 bP > .05 c,. df = 4 dX 2 = 2.14 91 Table 2 6 Relationship of LSI-A, LSI-B and Years From Retirement abc LSI-A Years From Retirement Group Total 11 - 15 21 10 16 29 48.3 11 37.9 24.1 20.7 17.2 Low 31 51.7 High 22.6 cde LSI-B 31 51.7 11 35. 5 16.1 Low 29 27.6 20.7 20.7 31.0 High 90 p .05 df 1.19 Table 27 Relationship of LSI-A, LSI-B and Retirement Status Group Retirement Status Total Retired Not Retired Low 17 56.7 13 43.3 30 49.2 High 22 71.0 9 29.0 31 50.8 LSI-BCde Low 18 56.3 14 43.8 32 52.5 High 21 72.4 8 27.6 29 47.5 a% 2 = .803 bp > . 0 5 cdf = 1 d]£2 = 1.09 ep >.05 93 Table 2 8 Relationship of LSI-A, LSI-B and Marital Status LSI-Aabc Group Marital Status Total Never Married Divorced Widowed Married 7 8 8 7 30 Low 23.3 26.7 26.7 23.3 49.2 10 5 5 11 31 High 32.3 16.1 16.1 35.5 50.8 _ ^_ _cde LSI-B 7 7 9 9 32 Low 21.9 21.9 28.1 28.1 52.5 10 6 4 9 29 High 34.5 20.7 13.8 31.0 47.5 ay2 _ 2_ 79 bp^.05 cdf = 3 dX2 = 2.39 ep ^ .05 94 Table 29 Relationship of LSI-A, LSI-B and Living Situation T „ abc LSI-A Group Living Situation Total Alone Other 17 13 30 Low 56.7 43.3 49.2 18 13 31 High 58.1 41.9 50.8 LSI—BCde 22 10 32 Low 68.8 31.3 52.5 13 16 29 High 44.8 55.2 47.5 aX 2 = -02 bp?-.05 o 0* Hi I I H dy^2 = 2.65 ep > . 0 5 95 Table 30 Relationship LSI-A, LSI--B and Transportation LSI-Aabc Group Transportation Total Drive Other 21 9 30 Low 70.0 30.0 49.2 22 9 31 High 71.0 29.0 50.8 _ _ „cde LSI-B 23 9 32 Low 71.9 28.1 52.5 20 9 29 High 69.0 31.0 47.5 a* )d .2 = -04 bp ? . 0 5 cdf = 1 d^ 2 = .001 0p ^ .05 96 Table 31 Relationship of LSI-A, LSI-B and Subjective Amount of Planning LSI—AabC Group Subjective Planning Total Low High 7 22 29 Low 24.1 75.9 48.3 7 24 31 High 22.6 77.4 51.7 8 23 31 Low 25.8 74.2 51.7 6 23 29 High 20.7 79.3 48.3 ?“ '°3 bp 7.05 cdf = 1 d " j i 2 = .03 ep7.05 97 Table 32 Relationship of LSI-A, LSI-B and Subjective Health Rating T ^ , abc LSI-A Group Health Total Excellent Good Fair-Poor 10 12 8 30 Low 33.3 40.0 26.7 49.2 13 14 4 31 High 41.9 45.2 12.9 50.8 LSI-B 6 17 9 32 Low 18.8 53.1 28.1 52.5 17 9 3 29 High 58.6 31.0 10.3 47.5 aX2 = i . 86 kp ^ # c )5 °df = 2 d ^ 2 = 10 .6 0 e p .05 98 Supplementary Findings A chi square anslysis was run to determine the significance of the relationship between actual future commitments and subjective amount of planning. In- ' erestingly, the relationship was not significant. These results are presented in Table 33. It was also of interest to know if subjective ratings of health had a significant relationship to predictions of the Number of Good Years Left and/or to predictions of Subjective Life Expectancy. The relationships as demonstrated by chi square analyses were highly significant (.01 level). Persons who rated their health as excellent were most likely to make long predictions. (See Table 34) Item Analysis: Life Satisfaction Index A One hundred LSI-A protocols were utilized for this item analysis. The mean score for this sample was 11.44 with a standard deviation of 3.34. The range was 2-17 and the median was 12. Two types of analysis were utilized to evaluate the validity of the LSI-A scale. These were item difficulty or item "popularity1 1 (Guilford and Fruchter, 1973) and point biseral correlations between each item and the total 99 Table 33 Relationship of Future Commitments and Subjective Amount of Planning Subjective Amount of Planning Future Commitments Total Low High 9 5 14 A lot 64.3 37.7 23.3 21 25 46 Some 45.7 54.4 76.7 y2 = i.65 p ;> .os 100 Table 34 Relationship of Health Status To Number of Good Years Left and To Subjective Life Expectancy Number of Good Years Lefta^c Health Extension Total No Prediction Short Long Excellent 2 8.7 3 13.0 18 78.3 2 3 37.7 Good 9 34.6 7 26.9 10 38.5 26 42.6 Fair 2 16.7 7 58.3 3 25. 0 12 19.7 Subjective Life „ . cde Expectancy Excellent 3 13.0 1 4.3 19 82.6 23 37.7 Good 10 38.5 6 23.1 10 38.5 26 42.6 Fair 3 25.0 5 41. 7 4 33.3 12 19.7 a -v/ 2 JL * 15 .58 kp .01 cdf = 2 I I C M 14.45 ep < .01 101 score. The point biserial correlation is a measure of item discrimination and can take on values of +1 to -1. For this sample the point biserial correlations range from .221 to .567. (See Table 35) Ideally these correlations should be above .30. The only item which fell below the .30 level was Item 13, "Compared to other people my age, I've made a lot of foolish decisions in my life." Comments made to this item indicated that respondants objected to the phrase "a lot of" and/or to the need to compare oneself to others in order to answer the item. Interviewed subjects frequently expressed annoyance with the scale. They often questioned what item four "I am just as happy as when I was younger" and item five "My life could be happier than it is now" meant. In terestingly these two items had high discrimination value. Perhaps persons who questioned what the word happy meant did not wish to acknowledge their unhappiness. Summary of the Findings This chapter reports results of statistical tests of hypotheses presented in Chapter I. Utilizing an a priori ordering of variates the regres sions of age, subjective life expectancy and future com- 101 Table 35 Item Analysis, Item Acceptability and Point- LSI—As Biserial Correlations Item Item Ac c e p t ab i1ity PBC 1. As I grow older, things seem better than I thought they would. .5600 .5628 2. I have gotten more of the breaks in life than most of the people I know. .6200 .3250 3. This is the dreariest time my life. of .8500 .4911 4. I am just as happy as when I was younger. .5800 .5668 5. My life could be happier than it is now. .3300 .5440 6. These are the best years of my life. .3200 .5191 7. Most of the things I do are boring or monotonous. .9200 .3808 8. The things I do are as interesting to me as they ever were. .7700 .5057 9. I feel old and somewhat tired. .6600 .4925 H O • I feel my age, but it does not bother me. .7000 .4127 11. As I look back on my life, I am fairly well satisfied. .8800 .4999 103 Item 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. Table 35 (Con't) Item Ac c ep t ab i1i ty I would not change my past life even if I could. .4200 Compared to other people my age, I’ve made a lot of foolish decisions in my life. .7500 Compared to other people my age, I make a good appearance. When I think back over my life, I didn't get most of the important things I wanted. .8100 . 6800 Compared to other people I get down in the dumps too often. .9100 PBC .3548 . 2212 .3384 . 5458 .4597 17. I've gotten pretty much what I expected out of life. .6800 .5586 104 mitments on life satisfaction scales A and B were signi-_ ficant. This combination of variates accounted for 17% of the variance of LSI-A. When number of good years left to live was substituted for subjective life expectancy the regression explained 28% of the variance of the A scale. The amount of variance accounted for on the B scale however, dropped slightly, to 18%. Inspection of the data revealed that it was the two subjective variates, SLE and NGL, which accounted for most of the variance explained by the regression. The two objective variates, age and future commitments/ added little power to the analyses. Amount of future commitments did not interact significantly with length of prediction of either sub-t jective life expectancy or number of good years left in their relation to life satisfaction scores. Post hoc comparisons of means showed that predictors of long life expectancy differed significantly on life satisfaction from the average of those who refused to predict and those whose predictions were short. The same results were found for number of good years left. Dif ferences in life satisfaction of short and long predictors ,of number of good years left were also significant. Both length of extension into the near future and the 105 extension of goals and/or plans into the distant future were found to be significantly related to life satisfac tion. Subjective amount of planning was not related to either of the life satisfaction indices. Subjects ratings of health were related to satisfaction as measured by the B but not the A scale. Future commitments and subjective amount of planning were measures of time coherence or time structuring. Extension of goal/plans into the near and distant future, number of good years left and subjective life expectancy were measures of time extension. From the data presented in this chapter it appeared that time structuring had i little relationship to life satisfaction. On the other hand, for this sample, time extension did have an im portant and significant relationship to subjects' satisfaction with their own lives. None of the chi square analyses of the relationship between life satisfaction and demographic variates were significant. Results of the item analysis of Life Satisfaction index A were reported. 106 Discussion The extension variates, which appear to be measuring hopefulness or optimism, were all significantly related to present life satisfaction. Because of the correlational nature of this study it was impossible to sort out cause and effect relationships and to say that the future stays open because people are optimistic or that people foresee a, future and are therefore hopeful. It is probable that the relationship works in both directions and that the integration of past experiences, present situation and future expectations lead to long future extension and present satisfaction. Comparison of age of self to that of parents and siblings (Marshall, 1975) and perceived health (present study) have been found to go into a person's estimation of subjective life expectancy. Comments made by respon dents during this study indicated that change in circumstances of living, such as, loss of a mate or reduced income also affected estimated SLE. This study questioned Ss on change in living conditions during the past year; the majority of respondents had not experienced such change. However, it is possible, that, for the old person, adjustment to loss or change takes more than a single year- Ss who had experienced significant losses 107 during the previous two to six years impressed this E with their anger or depression. These persons were stuck in the past. They did not seem to see themselves as able to replace or repair their losses. It would be interesting to know what effect a supportive, caring rela tionship would have on the extension and satisfaction of these persons. That plans for the coming week were not significantly related to life satisfaction contradicted previous studies which had found such a relationship (Spence, 1967; Schonfield, 1973) . Perhaps these seemingly conflicting results may be resolved by looking at the life satisfaction scales utilized, the types of samples studied and the dif ferent methods of data analysis employed. Plans for the coming week were also not related to the two subjective extension variates. It would seem that persons in this study who expected a long life used methods other than weekly planning to keep the future open. Another possible explanation might be that some persons utilized weekly commitments to keep themselves away from the future and dissatisfaction through busyness, while other persons utilized these activities to enjoy themselves and to move into the future. The combined effect of these approaches would eliminate the statistical relationships 108 between plans for the week, satisfaction and the subjective extension variates. It also might be that engrossment, meaningfulness and the persons with whom one planned were more important to both satisfaction and extension that mere number of commitments. CHAPTER V SUMMARY, CONCLUSIONS, RECOMMENDATIONS The purpose of this study was to investigate rela tionships between futurity and successful aging. The major intent was to determine whether beliefs concerning future time extension and time structuring behaviors (Planning) were related to the life satisfaction of older women. Two measures of beliefs about the future were utilized, the number of good years a person thought they had left to live and the number of years the individual projected for the duration of her life span. The interactions of each of the extension variates and planning in their relation to life satisfaction of old women were also of interest. Relationships between extension into the near and distant future with life satisfaction were investigated as were the relationships of satisfaction and demographic variates. An important aspect of this study was the control, through sampling, of socioeconomic status. Socioeconomic status was defined as profession and amount of education. 109 110 Methodology This was a "within" group study of middle class, professional women. Subjects were randomly drawn from female names on the mailing list of the California Retired Teachers Association, Los Angeles Division. Letters requesting participation in the study, a question naire asking for demographic data and the Life Satisfac tion Index A were then mailed. Stamped, self addressed envelopes were enclosed. One hundred Ss returned completed material and of these, 61 agreed to be interviewed. Ss were contacted and an interview scheduled; the interview took between 30 and 60 minutes. During the interview the Seven Day Diary, the Planning questionnaire and Life Satisfaction Index B were administered. All Ss were living in Los Angeles during March, April and May, 1976. Data Analysis Data for the major questions were analyzed by four separate multiple regressions. An a priori ordering of variables was utilized. Age, considered a control variate, was entered first; subjective life expectancy, (and in turn, number of good Ill years left) was entered before planning, on the assumption that the individual's ability to foresee a future effects behavior towards that future. As only a moderate, though significant, relationship between Life Satisfaction Index A and Life Satisfaction Index B was found, the two scales were retained as separate dependent variables. A correlation matrix indicated the degree of rela tionship among the independent variates and of each of these to the dependent variables. Four 3 X 2 ANOVAs were calculated to determine if any significant interactions existed between planning and subjective life expectancy and planning and number of good years left in their relation to each of the life satisfac tion scales. Chi square analyses were utilized to investigate significance of relations between, 1) extension into the near and 2) extension into the distant future with life satisfaction. Further questions investigated by chi square analyses were the relationship between 3) future commitments and subjective amount of planning and the 4) relationship of health ratings to number of good years left and 5) to sub jective life expectancy. 112 Relations between demographic variates and the two satisfaction indices were studied through chi square analyses. An item analysis of LSI-A was done. Summary of Findings Utilizing an a priori ordering of variates the multiple regressions of age, subjective life expectancy and future commitments on life satisfaction scales A and B were significant. When number of good years was substituted for subjective life expectancy the regressions also reached significance levels. Inspection of the data showed that it was the two extension variates which accounted for most of the explained variance. Age and future commitments added little to the analyses. Future commitments did not interact significantly with length of prediction of either subjective life expectancy or of number of good years left in their rela tion to life satisfaction scores. Post hoc comparison of means indicated significant differences in life satisfaction (Scales A and B) between the long extension and the average of the no and short extension groups of subjective life expectancy and of number of good years left. Significant differences in life 113 satisfaction on both scales were also found between short and long predictors of NGL. Both length of extension into the near future and extension of goals and/or plans into the distant future showed significant relationships to satisfaction. Subjective amount of planning was not significantly related to either of the life satisfaction scales. Subjects' ratings of their own health were related to satisfaction on the B scale but not the A scale. Health ratings showed significant relationships to both number of good years and to subjective life expectancy. No significant relations were found between life satisfaction and demographic variates. An item analysis of LSI-A was presented. Conclusions Although . the multiple regressions of age, subjective life expectancy and planning on life satisfaction, and of age, number of good years left and planning on life satisfaction, were significant at the .05 level it was obvious from an inspection of the data that, for this ordering of variables, the extension variates accounted for most of the explained variance. Data from the cor relation matrix tended to confirm these impressions. 114 All the extension variates, subjective life expectancy, number of good years left, length of extension into the near future and the having of goals and/or plans in the distant future, were found to be significantly related to subjects' self assessed satisfaction with their own lives. Measures of time structuring and density, i.e., future commitments and subjective amount of planning had little relationship to life satisfaction. It was interesting to note that planning for the coming week had such a weak relationship to extension into the future. It appeared that methods other than week to week activities were utilized by Ss in keeping the future open..' In the literature search no previous study was found which utilized data from non-predictors of subjective life expectancy. Previously this data was discarded. It may therefore be of interest to note that, in this present investigation, non-predictors did not, on the whole, differ in life satisfaction from either short or long predictors of subjective life expectancy. From these results it appeared that non-predictors were not a homogeneous group. Comments from persons refusing to predict were frequently in the vein of ’ ’ What a foolish question to ask; who would 115 want to limit themselves in that way; no, I couldn't do that." One conclusion which can be drawn from these types of statements is that for some Ss refusal may have been based on fear of a self-fulfilling prophesy. The results support the findings of previous studies of future time perspective. They do not however, support the findings of previous studies of planning behaviors (Spence, 1968; Schonfield, 1973). For the restricted social range of this sample no significant relationships were found between demographic variates and life satisfaction. Of particular interest was the non-significance of the relation between satisfac tion and income level. Part of the design of this study was an attempt to control socioeconomic status. Thus the sample was homogeneous on profession and on amount of education. Income level was not controlled through the sampling pro cedure. That it had no significant relation to satisfac tion of subjects in this study might have been due to 1) a truncated range of income and/or 2) regardless of level of income, women participating in the study identified themselves as retired "professionals" and therefore as members of a single groups i-e., middle class. 116 Recommendations 1. Subjective life expectancy and number of good years left accounted for significant amounts of explained variance of the life satisfaction of the elderly women in this study. The literature on these two variables has not identified what processes a person utilizes in making the calculations. Comments from interviewees indicated that not only a social comparison process (Marshall, 1975) but other, seemingly psychological considerations, were involved in making the estimations. Data analyses in this study revealed significant rela tionships between perceived health and the extension variates, and it is thought (Post, 1972), that perceived health of old persons is sensitive to psychological defense systems. Number of good years left appeared, to this E, to be closely related to psychological state. It is therefore recommended that studies be done to ascertain a. the relationship between perceived and actual health 117 b. psychological factors which go into the persons' estimations of subjective life expectancy and number of good years left to live, and, c. if different processes are utilized in making the estimates of the two extension variates. 2. The two life satisfaction scales did not appear to be completely palatable to respondents. It was possible that the indices were outdated. The scales also showed only moderate relationships to each other. It is recommended that studies aimed at the revision of the life satisfaction scales be made. 3. The sample for this study was entirely female. Gender may have a bearing on the relation between planning and life satisfaction of old persons. A study comparing males and females would be useful in clarifying possible sex differences. 4. The gross indicator of amount of hours commited did not relate to life satisfaction in a significant way. Future studies of planning should look at variety of, and involvement in, commitments. It is possible that engrossment is a more important variable than is quantity. 5. An open future appeared to be significantly related to life satisfaction but, for this sample, it did not 118 seem that planning for the coming week was the method utilized for maintaining a sense of futurity. An important question for counselors to investigate is, How does the old person keep the future open? APPENDIX A 119 120 Dear I am a doctoral candidate in the School of Education at the University of Southern California and am conducting a study on aging for my dissertation. Dr. Earl Carnes, who has joined me in this letter, is Chairman of my doctoral com mittee . As we are in the field of education, we are particularly interested in knowing about the people who belong to the California Retired Teachers Association. Therefore, we would appreciate your participation in this study which will require that you fill in the enclosed questionnaire and an interview of approximately 40 minutes. The interview is a vital part of our study and will be arranged at your con venience . Even if you do not wish to be interviewed, we would very much appreciate your cooperation in filling in and returning the enclosed questionnaire. The information you give will be kept confidential. Your name will in no way be connected with the study. The last question of the questionnaire concerns your willingness to be interviewed. If you agree to participate further in this study, Ms. Joanne Steuer will contact you by phone to arrange an appointment. Please fill in the questionnaire and return it as soon as possible. Thank you for your cooperation. We look forward to re ceiving the enclosed materials and your reply. Earl F. Carnes, Professor Joanne Steuer Department of Counselor Ph.D. Candidate Education APPENDIX B 121 122 ID No. We are conducting a study on aging for which we need your cooperation. Everything you tell us will be strictly confidential. Your name will not be connected in any way with this study. We have two questionnaires for you to fill out and return to us in the enclosed envelope. Please answer all the questions. My name is : __________________ _____ __________________________ Address:________________________________________________________ Phone number:__________________________________________________ I am (1) Male Female___ I am now (Check most suitable answer) (2) 1. ___Completely retired 2. ___Retired but working part time (paid) 3. ___Retired but working full time (paid) 4. ___Retired but doing volunteer work My position before retirement was (3) 1. ___Teacher 2. ___Counselor 3. ___Vice principal 4._____Principal 5. ___Other (Explain) 123 My highest academic degree is (4) 1. Bachelors 2 . Masters 3. Doctorate 4. Other (specify) My present income is approximately (If elude spouse's income in estimate) (5) married please in- 1. 0 - 2,999 2 . 3,000 - 5,999 3. 6,000 - 8,999 4. 9,000 - 11,999 5. 12,000 - 14,999 6- __15,000+ My present age is (6-7) My age (8-9) when I retired was I have been retired years. (1 0-1 1 ) I would say my health is (1 2 ) 1. Excellent 2 . Good 3. Fair 4. Poor 124 I am (13) 1. Married 2 . Divorced (Please state year divorced) 3. Separated (Date) 4. Widowed (Please state year widowed) 5. Never married I live (14) in 1. House 2 . Apartment 3. Re t i r e cm eiit/ r e st home 4. Other (Specify) I live (15) with 1. Husband/wife 2 . Child 3. Brother/sister 4. Friend 5. Alone 6 . Other (Specify) My living arrangements are the (16) same as they were last year 1. Yes 2 . No 125 If you could change your life right now how would you change it? (17) 1. Yes (Please explain)____________________________________ 2. No___ How much do you plan ahead the things you will be doing next week or the week after? (18) \ Not all A little Quite a lot Before my retirement I used to plan my time (19) 1. ___Quite a lot 2 ._____A little 3.__ ___Not at all My major means of transportation is (2 0 ) 1._____I drive 2._____Spouse drives 3. ___Friends or family drive 4 ._____Bus 5._____Walk 6 ._____Taxi 7._____Other (Specify) 126 The next questions are concerned with your realistic expectations about your life span. My best estimate of the number of good years I have left is (21-22) In thinking about the future, how many years do you ex pect to live? (23-24) Have you answered all the items? Thank you for doing so. APPENDIX C 127 128 Here are some statements about life in general that people feel differently about. Would you read each state ment on the list, and if you agree with it, put a check mark in the space under "AGREE.1 ’ If you do not agree with a statement, put a check mark in the space under "Disagree." If you are not sure one way or the other, put a check mark in the space under "?" PLEASE BE SURE TO ANSWER EVERY QUESTION ON THE LIST. AGREE DISAGREE ? 1, As I grow older, things seem better than I thought they would be. 2 . I have gotten more of the breaks in life than most of the people I know. 3. This is the dreariest time of my life. 4. I am just as happy as when I was younger. 5 . My life could be happier than it is now. 6 . These are the best years of my life. 7. Most of the things I do are boring or monotonous. 8 . The things I do are as interesting to me as they ever were. 129 AGREE DISAGREE ? 9. I feel old and somewhat tired 1 0 . I feel my age, but it does not bother me. 1 1 . As I look back on my life, I am fairly well satisfied. 1 2 . I would not change my past life even if I could. 13. Compared to other people my age, I've made a lot of foolish decisions in my life. 14. Compared to other people my age, I make a good appear ance . s 15. When I think back over my life, I didn't get most of the im portant things I wanted. 16. Compared to other people I get down in the dumps too often. 17. I've gotten pretty much what I expected out of life. 130 The next question concerns your willingness to participate further in this study. As mentioned in my letter this participation will con sist of an interview of approximately 40 minutes, arranged at your convenience. Thank you for your cooperation. 1. _____ I would like to be interviewed at my convenience. 2, _____ I would not like to be interviewed. Please do not contact me again. (42) APPENDIX D 131 132 Index B Would you please comment freely in answer to the following questions? 1. What are the best things about being the age you are now? 1 a positive answer 0 nothing good about it 2. What do you think you will be doing five years from now? How do you expect things will be different from the way they are now, in your life? 2 better, or no change 1__contingent-"It depends" 0 worse 3. What is the most important thing in youf life right now? 2__ anything outside of self, or pleasant interpreta tion of future 1 "Hanging on"; keeping health, or job 0_ getting out of present difficulty, or "nothing now," or reference to the past 4. How happy would you say you are right now, compared with the earlier periods in your life? 2 this is the happiest time; all have been happy; or, hard to make a choice 1 some decrease in recent years 0 earlier periods were better, this is a bad time 5. Do you ever worry about your ability to do what people expect of you— to meet demands that people make on you? 2 no 1 qualified yes or no 0 yes 133 6 . If you could do anything you pleased, in what part of _______ would you most like to live? 2 present location 0 any other location 7. How often do you find yourself feeling lonely? 2 never; hardly ever 1 s ome t ime s 0 fairly often; very often 8 . How often do you feel there is no point in living? 2 never; hardly ever 1_ s ome t ime s 0 fairly often; very often 9. Do you wish you could see more of your close friends than you do, or would you like more time to yourself? 2 O.K. as is 0__ wish could see more of friends 0 wish more time to self 10. How much unhappiness would you say you find in your life today? 2 almost none 1 some 0 a great deal 11. As you get older, would you say things seem to be better or worse than you thought they would be? 2 better 1_ about as expected 0 worse 12. How satisfied would you say you are with your way of life? 2 very satisfied 1 _fairly satisfied 0 not very satisfied 134 Scoring For Future Diary Week Score: Committed Time (56-58) Transportation Time (59-61) Total (56-58)+(59-61) APPENDIX E 135 136 I would like to ask you some questions concerning goals and plans. We have found that some people plan their week and some people like to wait and see what each day will bring. We are interested in knowing which sort of person you are. We are interested in all the appointments and plans you have for the coming week. Today is (day of interview) so let's start with tomorrow's plans, or any other definite appointments you have. We have prepared a seven-day appointment diary. We will fill in this diary with your appointments. If you expect to do something this week, but haven't arranged the time as yet we would like to know about that too. We are interested in all the things you expect to be doing, no matter how insignificant or unimportant you may think they are. We are interested in tentative as well as definite plans. Please don't hesitate to ask questions. Let's start with things you expect to be doing within the next week. We are particularly interested in things you don't do every day. Let's begin with tomorrow and go through the week. Instructions to interviewer: Circle to morrow's day at top of page. If appointment is for 12 on lunch date, place a line at 1 2 : 0 0 and ask how long lunch is expected to last. If answer is about one hour draw a line at 1:00 connect with other time and write lunch across space. If appointment is outside the house ask how long it will take to get there and to re turn. Draw a line at time to leave house and time to return and mark T. Ask about each day and if necessary probe. At end of week ask if respondent has left anything out or wants to add anything. Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday Sunday 137 APPENDIX F 138 139 Now that we have talked about your week I am in terested in knowing what you plan for the near future. As you remember I am really interested in knowing about your plans, even if they seem insignificant or unimportant at the moment. PROBE: Do you have any other projects or plans you hope to accomplish in the near future? Do you have any projects or plans connected to family, friends, hobbies, vacations, holidays, clubs, work? Vague but Wishes Definite likely and Hopes Time expected to happen Within one month Within three months Within a year After one year before two Two to three years Longer 140 Interviewer: Record furthest time mentioned as near future (65) 1.______One month 2. ____More than one month but less than three months 3. ____Three months or more but less than six months 4.______Six months or more but less than one year 5.______One year or more but less than two 6 .______Two to three years 7. Three to five years Nov/ I’d like to know what thoughts, if any, you have about your more distant future. What goals or plans do you have? PROBE: Do you have any long term goals for yourself? I'd like to know what they are. When you expect these to materialize? Record furthest time mentioned as distant future. (66) 1.______One month 2.______More than one month but less than three months 3. ____Three months or more but less than six months 4. Six months or more but less than one year 5.__ _____One year or more but less than two 6 . Two or three years 7.______Three to five years Is there anything we haven't mentioned that you would like to accomplish during your life? 1. 2 . 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10, REFERENCE Adams, D. L. Analysis of a life satisfaction index. Journal of Gerontology, 1969, 2_4, 470-474. Bortner, W. W. and Hultsch, D. F. Personal time perspective in adulthood. Developmental Psychology, 1972, 1_, 98-103. Burnside, I. Mental health and the aged. In Davis, R. (Ed.) Aging; prospects and issues, Los Angeles; Ethel Percy Andrus Gerontology Center, 1973. Butler, R. N. The life review - an interpretation of reminiscence in the aged. Psychiatry, 1963, 26/ 65-76. Botwinick, J. Aging and behavior; a comprehensive integration of research findings. New York: Springer, 1973. Cameron, P., Titus, D., Kostin, j. , and Kostin, M. The life satisfaction of non-normal persons. Journal of Consulting Psychology, 1973, 41, 207-214. Cameron, P. The generation gap: time orientation. The Gerontologist, 1972, 12, (2), 117-119. Chellam, G. The disengagement theory: awareness of death and self-engagement. Unpublished D.S.W. dissertation, Western Reserve University, 1964. Costa, P., and Kastenbaum, R. Some aspects of memories and ambitions in centenarians. Journal of Genetic Psychology, 1967, 110, 3-16. Cumming, E., and Henry, W. H. Growing Old: the pro- cess of disengagement. New York: Basic Books, 1961. 141 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 142 Dickstein, L. S., and Blatt, S. J. Death concern, futurity, and anticipation. Journal of Con sulting Psychology, 1966, 30^, 11-17. Doob, L. W. Patterning of time. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1971. Erikson, E. H. Identity and the life cycle. Psychological Issues, 1959 , 1L. Fink, H. H. The relationship of time perspective to age, institutionalization and activity. Journal of Gerontology, 1957, 12_, 414-417. Fraisse, P. The psychology of time. New York: Harper, 1963. Freeman, S. A. Time perspective as a function of socioeconomic group and age. Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation. University of Southern California, 1964. Glass, G. V., and Stanley, J. C. Statistical methods in education and psychology. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice Hall, 1970. Guilford, J. P., and Fruchter, B. Fundamental statistics in psychology and education. New York: McGraw .Hill, 1973. Hartmann, H. Ego psychology and the problem of adaptation. Rapaport, D. (Trans.) New York: International University Press, 1958. Havighurst, R. J,, Neugarten, B. L., and Tobin, S. S. Disengagement and patterns of aging. In Neugarten, B. L. (Ed.) Middle age and aging, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1968. Kastenbaum, R. A preliminary study of the ^dimensions of future time perspective. Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, University of Southern California, 1959. Kastenbaum, R. Cognitive and personal futurity in later life. Journal of Individual Psychology, 1963, 19, 216-222. 143 23. 24. 25. 26. 27, 28. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33. Kastenbaum, R. Engrossment and perspective in later life: a developmental field approach. In Kastenbaum, R. (Ed.) Contributions to the psycholobiology of aging, New York: Springer, 1965. Kerlinger, F. N., and Pedhauser, E. J. Multiple regression in behavioral research. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, Inc., 1973. Kuhlen, R. Developmental changes in motivation during the adult years. In Neugarten, B. L. (Ed.) Middle age and aging. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1968. Kuhlen, R. G., and Monge, R. H. Correlates of estimated rate of time passage in adult years. Journal of Gerontology, 1968, 2_3, 427-433. Lehr, U. Attitudes towards the future in old age. Human development, 1967, _10, 230-238. Lewin, K. Time perspective and morale. In Watson, G. (Ed.) Civilian morale, New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1942. Libow, L. S. Interaction of medical, biologic, and behavioral factors on aging, adaptation and survival. An 11 year longitudinal study. Geriatrics, 1974, 29_, (11), 75-88. Lowenthal, M. F., Thurnher, M., and Chiriboga, D. Four stages of life. San Francisco: Jossey- Bass, 1975. Marshall, V. W. Age and awareness of finitude in developmental psychology. Omega, 1975, 6 , (2), 113-129. May, R. Contributions of existential psychotherapy. In May, R., Angel, E., Ellenberger, H. F. (Eds.) Existence: A new dimension in psychiatry and psychology, New York: Simon and Shuster, 1958. Menahem, R. Temporal semantic space. Annee Psychologigue, 1972, 7^, (2), 353-377. 34. 35. 36. 37. 38. 39. 40. 41. 42. 43. 44. 45. 144 Miller, D., and Lieberman, M. A. The relationship of affect state and adaptive capacity to reac- tion to stress. Journal of Gerontology, 1965, 20, 492-497. Minkowski, E. Lived time; phenomenological and psychopathological studies. Evanston: North western University Press, 1970. Neugarten, B. L. The awareness of middle age. In Neugarten, B. L. (Ed.) Middle age and aging, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1968. Neugarten, B. L. Personality in middle and late life. New York: Atherton Press, 1964. Neugarten, B. L., Havighurst, R. J., and Tobin, S. S. The measurement of life satisfaction. Journal of Gerontology, 1961, 16^, 134-143. Nuttin, J. R. The future time perspective in human motivation and learning. Acta Psychologica, 1964, Z3, 60-82. Population Reference Bureau, the+ elderly in America. Population Bulletin, 1975, 30^, 2. Post, F. The clinical psychiatry of later life. Oxford, England: Pergamon Press, 1972. Reynolds, D. K., and Kalish, R. A. Anticipation of futurity as a function of ethnicity and age. Journal of Gerontology, 1974, 29, 2, 224-231. Rosenfelt, R. H., Kastenbaum, R., and Slater, P. E. Patterns of short range time orientation in geriatric patients. In Kastenbaum, R. (Ed.) New thoughts on old age New York: Springer. 1964. Ruiz, R. A., Reivich, R. S., and Kraus, H. H. Tests of temporal perspective: do they measure the same construct? Psychological Reports, 1967, 21, 849-852. Schonfield, D. Future commitments and successful aging. I. The random sample. Journal of Gerontology, 1973, 28, 189-196. 145 46. 47. 48. 49. 50. 51. 52. 53. 54. 55. Schonfield, D. and Hooper, A. Future commitments and successful aging. II. Special groups. Journal of Gerontology, 1973, 28, 197-201. Spence, D.L. The role of futurity in aging adaptation. Gerontologist, 1968, _3, 180-183. Teahan, J. E. Future time perspective, optimism and academic achievement. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 1958, _57, 379-380. Teahan, J., and Kastenbaum, R. Subjective life expectancy and future time perspective as predictors of job success in the 'hard-core' unemployed. Omega, 1970, 1_, (3), 189-200. Wallace, M. Future time perspective in schizophrenia. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 1956, 52, 240-245. Wallace, M., and Rabin, A. I. Temporal experience. Psychological Bulletin, 1960, 57^, 213-236. Wohlford, P. Extension of personal time, affective states, and expectation of personal death. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1966, 3, 559-566. W0 U5:, R. L. , Rustin, S. L. , and Scotte, J. The geriatric delinquent. Journal of American Geriatric Society, 1963, 11_, 653-656. Wood, V., Wylie, M. L., and Scheafer, B. Analysis of a short self report measure of life satisfaction: correlation with rater judgments. Journal of Gerontology, 1969, 24_, (4), 465-469. Zibbell, R. A. Activity level, future time perspec tive and life satisfaction in old age. Un published Ph.D. dissertation. Boston University, 1970.

Linked assets

University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses

Conceptually similar

PDF

A comparison of counseling and related needs as perceived by mature women students in selected community colleges: 1976 and 1980

PDF

Married Japanese women with children: The relationship between perceived spousal support, childrearing, outside employment, and levels of depression, anxiety, self-esteem, and life satisfaction

PDF

Relationship between mode of masturbatory activity and subsequent mode of achieving orgasm during coitus in women

PDF

Perceptions of parental behaviors by a sample of gifted and no gifted women: an exploratory study

PDF

The relationship of psychological androgyny to self-esteem and life satisfaction in career-oriented and home-oriented women

PDF

Contingency contracting for eliminating chronic tardiness of black, educationally handicapped delinquents

PDF

Involuntary childlessness and marital satisfaction and adjustment.

PDF

A survey of retirement home residents and parents of nursery school children on the issue of cross-generation contact

PDF

Psychological authenticity: A philosophically derived concept according to the Heideggerian and Sartrean views of being

PDF

Physiological, emotional, and self-reported indices of stress response for women in dual-career marriages

PDF

The life paths of baby boom women: A tale of unexpected consequences

PDF

An exploratory investigation of women's studies in selected institutions of higher education with emphasis upon the historical background of the status of women and the special needs of women in ...

PDF

The effects of a Career Exploration Experience on the employability of disadvantaged Native Alaskan youth

PDF

A comparative evaluation of the conference and homeroom plans of group guidance

PDF

A cross-cultural comparison of marital power and dyadic adjustment among American, Indo-American, and East Indian dual-career and single-career couples

PDF

A longitudinal study of women in law enforcement

PDF

Paths to sex role redefinition in dual-career women

PDF

The war in El Salvador: The child as witness, participant, casualty, survivor, a phenomenological study

PDF

Who returns to abusive partners? Battered women in shelters: Attributional style, locus of control, social support, and shelter program satisfaction

PDF

Beliefs of leaders in education toward status of women

Asset Metadata

Creator Steuer, Joanne (author)

Core Title Future time perspective, commitments and life satisfaction of retired women educators

Degree Doctor of Philosophy

Degree Program Education

Publisher University of Southern California (original), University of Southern California. Libraries (digital)

Tag education, guidance and counseling,Gerontology,OAI-PMH Harvest,sociology, individual and family studies,women's studies

Language English

Contributor Digitized by ProQuest (provenance)

Permanent Link (DOI) https://doi.org/10.25549/usctheses-c26-462003

Unique identifier UC11246110

Identifier usctheses-c26-462003 (legacy record id)

Legacy Identifier DP24248.pdf

Dmrecord 462003

Document Type Dissertation

Rights Steuer, Joanne

Type texts

Source University of Southern California (contributing entity), University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses (collection)

Access Conditions The author retains rights to his/her dissertation, thesis or other graduate work according to U.S. copyright law. Electronic access is being provided by the USC Libraries in agreement with the au...

Repository Name University of Southern California Digital Library

Repository Location USC Digital Library, University of Southern California, University Park Campus, Los Angeles, California 90089, USA