Personality Changes in the Old–Old: A Longitudinal Study

Although many studies have examined the issue of personality stability in early and middle adulthood, few have explored the limits of personality stability in the very old, who are often confronted with major changes in their health and life circumstances which can severely impact adaptive behavior. We conducted a longitudinal study of 74 elderly women with a mean age of 80. They were assessed on the personality traits of Neuroticism, Extroversion, and Openness. Although multiple regression analyses revealed moderate stability on all 3 traits, their stability was found to be influenced by negative changes in life circumstances. For example, decreased social support and increased unmet needs were associated with more Neuroticism. Less Extroversion was associated with poorer health and greater psychosocial needs. The trait of Openness was very stable and was the least affected by life events. These contradictory findings are reconciled by considering personality development within an interaction framework.     

The Old ‘New’ Dignitarianism

Res Publica - Developments in fields as diverse as biotechnology, animal cognition, and computer science have cast serious doubt on the common belief that human beings are unique and that only they...     

Old is old is old?

We examined potential differences between two matched subgroups of elderly men: young-old (65-74 years of age; n = 53) and old-old (75 years of age and older; n = 56). Subjects were fairly healthy men from community agencies, who were interviewed and tested on a number of characteristics involving personality, mood, attitudes, and behaviors. Although t tests and correlations indicated some differences between the groups, the overall findings underlined their similarity on the vast majority of variables scrutinized. The crucial base for enhancing understanding in gerontology should not only focus on the age-advancing senescent person but on the whole individual.     

State Aid to Religiously Affiliated,Non-Public Schools: An Emerging Trend or Same Old Same Old?

This article reviews judicial attitudes with regard to the constitutionality of aid for children in religiously affiliated non-public schools. The first part highlights the extent to which the Supreme Court appears to have turned the corner in its willingness to examine the effective use of resources in regular education rather than just the acceptability of aid. The second section reviews how Congressional and regulatory activities have contributed to lower court decisions that continue to focus on the narrow issues of how much money can be spent and the appropriate locations for the delivery of services to children who attend religiously affiliated non-public schools rather than the quality of education that they may be eligible to receive. Given the distinctions between the ways in which children in religiously affiliated non-public schools are treated based on whether they have disabilities, this article examines recent legal trends in considering whether there will be a new era in providing children who attend religiously affiliated non-public schools with the state aid that they deserve.     

Categorization Deficit in Old Age: Reality or Artefact?

When categorization behaviour is compared between young and elderly adults, results usually show a decrease in taxonomic choices along with an increase in thematic choices. This can be interpreted in two ways: a decline in the ability to perceive and use taxonomic relations, or a modification of conceptual preferences with aging related to a bias stemming from material which favours young adults. We evaluated the second hypothesis by studying whether the salience of categorical associations could explain the differences generally observed between young and elderly adults. This hypothesis was tested on 25 young subjects (M = 45.3 years, SD =5.6 years) and 30 elderly subjects (M = 71.5 years, SD = 7.1 years) using a matching task: individual judgments were used to build triads in which a target was presented along with a strong and a weak associate. In line with our hypothesis, both age groups were influenced by associative strength and type of relation in the same way. Results are interpreted with Baltes’s [1987, Developmental Psychology, 23, 611–626] model.     

Message from a “Not So Wise Old Man”

At the start of the academic year, the C. G. Jung Institute of Los Angeles has a Welcome Dinner during which the community gathers and is introduced to the new candidates training to become Jungian analysts and the new interns who work at the Kieffer E. Frantz Clinic, the first clinic to offer Jungian analysis on a sliding-fee scale. The staff is also invited to this event, held at a local restaurant with a large banquet room. It has become a tradition to invite a senior analyst to share their wisdom. Here is the talk given by Glenn Foy, the Institute's oldest member, at almost 97 years old.     

An ‘Oedipus pattern’ in the Old Testament?

The Oedipus myth and a scapegoat pattern have been central issues in both Walter Burkert's and René Girard's writings about ancient Greek religion. This article proposes the existence of a comparable pattern in the Old Testament legend about the Ark (1-2 Samuel). Together with other Old Testament narratives (David, Moses) and other ancient Near Eastern legends and rituals, these instances form a transformational network, which shows some fundamental positions in a trans-cultural scapegoat-pattern of actantial positions: king, hero, villain and scapegoat.     

Past her Prime? Simone de Beauvoir on Motherhood and Old Age

Despite her reputation as the ‘Mother’ of second-wave feminism, Simone de Beauvoir is not usually heralded as a mother-friendly feminist. In The Second Sex, the passages dedicated to the female body—and especially the pregnant female body—have been dismissed as unfortunate expressions of internalized patriarchy or personal idiosyncrasy. By comparing Beauvoir’s later analysis of old age to aspects of the experience of pregnancy and early motherhood, this essay suggests that Beauvoir’s later work Old Age offers a rich untapped resource for understanding her thinking on maternity.     

Images of Old Men’s Masculinity: Still a Man?

Relatively little attention has been paid to later life masculinities. Separate studies were designed to identify the commonly held images of old men and then determine whether or not an old man is perceived as a man or more in terms of a gender-neutral elderly person. The first assessed the commonly held images of positive and negative later life masculinities. A second study examined if old men’s gendered character was perceived similarly in comparison to a young man or an old woman. Findings from the studies revealed age expectations and masculinity norms jointly affected people’s images of old men. Old men were favorably described more often than negatively stereotyped, and there was evidence of distinct late life masculinity expectations.     

Assessing Security Technology’s Impact: Old Tools for New Problems

The general idea developed in this paper from a sociological perspective is that some of the foundational categories on which the debate about privacy, security and technology rests are blurring. This process is a consequence of a blurring of physical and digital worlds. In order to define limits for legitimate use of intrusive digital technologies, one has to refer to binary distinctions such as private versus public, human versus technical, security versus insecurity to draw differences determining limits for the use of surveillance technologies. These distinctions developed in the physical world and are rooted in a cultural understanding of pre-digital culture. Attempts to capture the problems emerging with the implementation of security technologies using legal reasoning encounter a number of problems since law is by definition oriented backwards, adapting new developments to existing traditions, whereas the intrusion of new technologies in the physical world produces changes and creates fundamentally new problems.     

Who is God in the Old Testament? Retrieving Aquinas after Rahner's Answer

Karl Rahner adamantly argued that the God of the Old Testament is the unoriginate Person of the Father. This forms the bedrock of his trinitarian theology, often credited as renewing Christian appreciation for the Trinity. However, his position that the Old Testament God must be identified as the Father contradicts much of the Christian tradition, including strands of Greek theology whose emphasis on the Father he claimed to restore to the West. This article retrieves the theology of Thomas Aquinas after Rahner in order to correct the imbalance of Rahner's position with greater nuance in appreciating the mystery of God in the Old Testament.     

Does Happiness Increase in Old Age? Longitudinal Evidence from 20 European Countries

Journal of Happiness Studies - Several studies indicate that happiness follows a U-shape over the life cycle: Happiness decreases after the teenage years until reaching its nadir in middle age. A...     

Saving for a Rainy Day? Comparative Optimism About Disability in Old Age

This study examined young (n = 40) and middle‐aged (n = 30) adults' susceptibility to comparative optimism and comparative pessimism regarding disability in old age and their willingness to save for long‐term care. Participants rated their risk of diverse levels of disability in old age, compared to another similar person, and indicated the amount of money they would be willing to save for future long‐term care. While middle‐aged participants showed the same level of comparative optimism for diverse disability levels, younger participants showed increasing levels of comparative optimism with increasing disability. Participants' comparative optimism levels and age both predicted their intentions to save. The findings are discussed in terms of theories of judgment and behavioral decision making.     

Rating Scales as Predictors—The Old Question of Scale Level and Some Answers

Rating scales as predictors in regression models are typically treated as metrically scaled variables or, alternatively, are coded in dummy variables. The first approach implies a scale level that is not justified, the latter approach results in a large number of parameters to be estimated. Therefore, when rating scales are dummy-coded, applications are often restricted to the use of a few predictors. The penalization approach advocated here takes the scale level serious by using only the ordering of categories but is shown to work in the high dimensional case. We consider the proper modeling of rating scales as predictors and selection procedures by using penalization methods that are tailored to ordinal predictors. In addition to the selection of predictors, the clustering of categories is investigated. Existing methodology is extended to the wider class of generalized linear models. Moreover, higher order differences that allow shrinkage towards a polynomial as well as monotonicity constraints and alternative penalties are introduced. The proposed penalization approaches are illustrated by use of the Motivational States Questionnaire.     

Hermeneutical Portrait of Today’s 18–22 Year Old Young Adult Male

This article’s objective is to help uncover today’s 18–22 year old young adult male in his modern day milieu in order to paint a hermeneutical portrait of his maleness and masculinity. It will attempt to do so utilizing two main categories: (1) psycho-social development and (2) socio-cultural types and archetypes. Psycho-social development refers to the meaning and telos of the young man’s “maleness” and “masculinity.” It is the self-perceived direction of his sexuality explored within the frameworks of physiology and post-modern implications of his development. Socio-cultural types and archetypes refer to the established male roles and masculine identity markers as well as the human energy that operates in the daily life of college men today. The article concludes with a portrait of the young man’s overall perception of the public sphere, how he is placed within a social and political mindset and imagination regarding maleness and masculinity today.     

Disentangling the Concept of Well-Being in Very Old Age Using Rodgers’ Evolutionary Concept Analysis

Journal of Happiness Studies - Well-being has received increasing attention from researchers and policymakers, and its promotion could be considered pivotal to handle the challenges of aging...