Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
Hostname: page-component-745bb68f8f-d8cs5 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-01-15T06:07:17.691Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

15 - Culture and Meaning: Strategies for Understanding the Well-Being of the Oldest Old

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 August 2012

By
Christine L. Fry  and
Charlotte Ikels
Edited by
Leonard W. Poon  and
Jiska Cohen-Mansfield
Christine L. Fry
Affiliation:
Loyola University of Chicago
Charlotte Ikels
Affiliation:
CaseWestern Reserve University
Leonard W. Poon
Affiliation:
University of Georgia
Jiska Cohen-Mansfield
Affiliation:
Tel-Aviv University
Get access

Summary

ABSTRACT

Well-being has been a central variable in understanding the experiences of older people including the oldest old. For subjective well-being cultural understandings and meaning are central. A long standing question has been how to measure well-being within one culture and across cultures. Two major strategies have evolved. The first uses psychometric measures and multivariate analysis to explore different components of well-being. The second is more open-ended using ethnographic and qualitative strategies to elicit dimensions of well-being from the experiences of older people in the contexts in which they live. The promises and difficulties of each methodology are reviewed. The appropriateness of each strategy for diverse contexts and populations of the oldest old are considered.

INTRODUCTION

A prominent and persistent effort of gerontology is directed toward understanding the well-being of older people. The quality of life in a community can be assessed directly through indicators of life expectancy, levels of education, quality of housing, and income. How well-being is experienced and evaluated calls for more subjective measurement. For more than a half a century, researchers have devised scales and alternative strategies for measuring what may well be a gerontological holy grail.

Type
Chapter
Information
Understanding Well-Being in the Oldest Old , pp. 261 - 280
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2011

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Basabe, N., Paez, D., Valencia, J., Gonzalez, J. L., Rime, B., & Diener, E. (2002). Cultural dimensions, socioeconomic development, climate, and emotional hedonic level. Cognition and Emotion, 16, 103–125.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Biswas-Diener, R., Diener, E., & Tamir, M. (2004). The psychology of subjective well-being. Daedalus, 133, 18–25.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bowling, A., & Gabriel, Z. (2007). Lay theories of quality of life in older age. Aging and Society, 27, 827–848.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bowling, A., Gabriel, Z., Dykes, J., Marriott-Dowdling, L., Evans, L., Fliessig, A., et al. (2003). Let's ask them: a national survey of definitions of quality of life and its enhancement among people aged 65 and over. International Journal of Aging and Human Development, 56, 269–306.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Bradburn, N. M. (1969). The structure of psychological wellbeing. Chicago: Aldine.Google Scholar
Campbell, A., Converse, P. E., & Rodgers, W. L. (1976). The quality of American life: Perceptions, evaluations and satisfactions. New York: Russell Sage Foundation.Google Scholar
Cantril, H. (1965). The pattern of human concerns. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.Google Scholar
D'Andrade, R. (1995). The development of cognitive anthropology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Munck, V. C., & Sobo, E. J. (Eds.). (1998). Using methods in the field: A practical introduction and casebook. Walnut Creek, CA: Altamira Press.Google Scholar
Diener, E., & Suh, E. M. (Eds.). (2000). Culture and subjective well-being. Cambridge: Massachusetts Institute of Technology Press.Google ScholarPubMed
Diener, E., & Tov, W. (2007). Culture and subjective well-being. In Kitayama, S. & Cohen, D. (Eds.), Handbook of cultural psychology (pp. 691–713). New York: Guilford Press.Google Scholar
Draper, P. (2007). Conducting cross-cultural research in teams and the search for the “culture proof” variable. Menopause, 14, 680–687.Google ScholarPubMed
Fry, C. L., Dickerson-Putman, J., Draper, P., Ikels, C., Keith, J., Glascock, P., & Harpending, H. C. (1997). Culture and the meaning of a good old age. In Sokolovsky, J. (Ed.), The cultural context of aging: Worldwide perspectives (pp. 99–124). Westport, CT: Bergin and Garvey.Google Scholar
Grey, R. S., Rukumnuaykit, P., Kittisuksathit, S., & Thongthai, V. (2008). Inner happiness among Thai elderly. Journal of Cross-Cultural Gerontology, 23, 211–224.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Harman, R. C. (1998). Triad questionnaires: Old age in Karen and Maya cultures. In Munck, V. C. & Sobo, E. J. (Eds.), Using methods in the field: A practical introduction and casebook (pp. 121–138). Walnut Creek, CA: Altamira Press.Google Scholar
Johnson, C. L., & Barer, B. M. (1997). Life beyond 85 years: The aura of survivorship. New York: Springer.Google Scholar
Keith, J., Fry, C. L., Glascock, A. P., Ikels, C., Dickerson-Putman, J., Harpending, H. C. et al. (1994). The aging experience: Diversity and commonality across cultures. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.Google Scholar
Lawton, M. P. (1975). The Philadelphia Geriatric Center Morale Scale: A revision. Journal of Gerontology, 30, 85–89.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Neugarten, B. L., Havighurst, R. J., & Tobin, S. S. (1961). The measurement of life satisfaction. Journal of Gerontology, 16, 134–143.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Nydegger, C. N. (Ed.). (1977). Measuring morale: A guide to effective assessment. Washington, DC: Gerontological Society.Google Scholar
Oishi, S., Diener, E., Lucas, R. E., & Suh, E. (1999). Cross-cultural variations in predictors of life satisfaction: Perspectives from needs and values. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 25, 980–990.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rosenberg, H. G. (2009). Complaint discourse: Aging and caregiving among the Ju/hoansi of Botswana. In Sokolovsky, J. (Ed.), The cultural context of aging: Worldwide perspectives (pp. 30–52). Westport, CT: Praeger.Google Scholar
Schrauf, R. W., & Sanchez, J. (2008). Using freelisting to identify, assess, and characterize age differences in shared cultural dimensions. Journal of Gerontology Social Sciences, 63B, S385–S392.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Torres, S. (1999). A culturally relevant theoretical framework for the study of successful aging. Aging and Society, 19, 33–51.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure no-reply@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×