| Abstract: | A study of the positive and negative attributions of longevity among the elderly was conducted by using elderly subjects from three socioeconomic backgrounds. The purpose was to try to understand attributions of longevity in terms of prototypical response patterns of the elderly. It was hypothesized that several prototypes exist in the population of the elderly and that these prototypes correspond to the given life style of the elderly from different socioeconomic conditions. Thus overall, the study was intended to elucidate the structure and contents of the elderly people's perceptions of longevity. For this purpose factor analysis and discriminant function analyses were done in order to identify significant factors which differentiated the responses of subjects from the three socioeconomic groups. Results indicated that there are strong and interpretable factors which distinguish the perceptions of the elderly from three different socioeconomic conditions; there are also common core factors. The results are discussed in terms of their usefulness for understanding the perceptual framework and implicit belief systems of the elderly concerning longevity. |
