Age, Attitudes to Aging, and Identity in Older Canadian Women (original) (raw)
Related papers
Geriatric Medicine and Gerontology [Working Title], 2019
Female identity is a dynamic concept, and it has been a very discussed issue by contemporary cultural critic. How does old age affect identity construction and perception in elderly woman? Has feminine gender an impact in subjective well-being? Psychological changes of midlife women have been as conflicting as the idea that society has about them. Personality changes after young adulthood in women is a controversial matter. Erikson proposed that women might not develop identities in early adulthood as men do. In fact, he argued that women develop them later, in the context of an intimate relationship. Moreover, identity development appears to have important consequences for midlife well-being. For example, Vandewater et al. found that women's midlife well-being was facilitated by earlier attainment of a well-articulated identity. In these situations accomplishment of developmentally earlier tasks (identity formation) sets the stage for later psychological health. Our work sheds additional light on how women live this period of life in terms of happiness and purpose of life.
Aging identity: Do theories match experiences?
Corvinus Journal of Sociology and Social Policy, 2015
Dominant aging identity theories ("mask of ageing", "social mask", M. Foucault's "disembodiment thesis", gerotranscendental theory) as well as the concept of the postmodern reflexive self of A. Giddens cannot be used to effectively explain old age identity in contemporary Lithuania. More suitable for this purpose is E. Goffman's concept of stigma that explains denial, evasion and marginalization of old age. These are the conclusions of a qualitative piece of research-involving in-depth interviews with elderly people-that was designed to examine the ways in which old age identity is created and aging is experienced by older people, as well as to ascertain whether the elderly experience stigmatization in everyday interactions. The data were collected from October 2010-January 2011 in Vilnius (N=24): the selection of informants was targeted by gender, age group (60-74 and 75-89), level of education (primary, secondary, higher), and household type (households of several generations, single-generation and institutional households). To interpret the data, the method of abduction or inference to the best explanation (Harman, 1965) was used.
Age identity and making sense of meaning in the lives of older adults
2004
The link between age identity and meaning in life is examined through the process of story-telling and the analysis of life stories told by older adults. This research applies the personal existence perspective outlined by Gary M[. Kenyon, which is a conceptual fiamework that is premised on the metaphor "life ias a journey", that views aging as a journey and humans as travelers in time. This perspective argues that storytelling is a way of communicating meaning in life, and that the larger stories existing outside of us as individuals in turn shape our individual life stories. In this study, the term age identity is used to refer to the way in which older adults are aging biographically, or storying time, throughout the journey of lifk. Life stories were collected fiom four older adults living in Victoria, B.C. and Calgary, A.B. The different meanings that are attached to plot lines, themes, characters, and settings within these lifestories are examined. An awareness of age by these older adults was expressed in their lifestories in the way that they verbalized the passing and compression of time, compared societal values over time, articulated new attitudes towards life and what they learned in life, and were dealing with bodily changes, caregiving responsibilities, alterations in partnership status, and their impending mortality. The story of this research is also presented in order to illustrate the conceptual and meth~odological difficulties lying at the heart of conducting research on age identity.
Continuity, change and possibility in older age: Identity and ageing-as-discovery
Journal of Sociology, 2018
Traditionally, sociology has framed older age as a time of disengagement, withdrawal and reduced social integration. While now largely dismissed in contemporary sociological understandings of ageing, narratives of decline still feature heavily across social, media, and medical discourses. This negativity towards ageing could be at odds with how older people experience their age and identity. In this article, I will explore how 16 older people construct their self-identity. Drawing on participant-generated imagery and interview data, this article exposes that they experience older age as a time of continuity, discovery, possibility and change, where identity is multiple and fluid, and emerges through the links they make between the past, present and future. Thus, while ageing is not without its difficulties, the research participants challenge the social myths that reductively and negatively frame older age by constructing an identity that builds on their past through an active exploration of new possibilities and experiences.
Journal of Aging Studies, 1999
In this article, we discuss some of the methodological implications of gender, based on research conducted among seniors in the age group 67 to 100 +, living independently (alone, or with minimal assistance) in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada's retirement capital. Our research evolved over time to concern the manner in which people being interviewed altered their presentation of self in discourses on independence and identity, depending on the interviewer's gender as well as their own. There are some significant implications that arise from our analysis for assessing the needs of individuals for home-making services and probably for service delivery, in general. This article discusses initial, qualitative interviews conducted with 39 people (19 men and 20 women) dealing specifically with the concept of independence. The chief methodological significance of these interviews derives from the strategy of doing two separate sets of interviews using the same protocols, but changing the gender of the interviewer/subject dyads from same-gender interviews to cross-gender interviews and assessing the differences between the two sets of conversations. Prior to the discussion, however, some of the most pressing issues surrounding the health care of *Direct all correspondence to:
The Journals of Gerontology Series B: Psychological Sciences and Social Sciences, 2009
Objectives. Drawing on past studies of age identity, this article examined whether feeling older was associated with more pessimistic views about cognitive aging. Methods. Using respondents aged 55 years and older in the Midlife Development in the United States study, we estimated a series of linear regression models to predict people ' s dispositions toward their cognitive aging. The main comparison is whether the effects of age identity on cognitive aging differ for men and women. Results. Beyond the effects of chronological age, older age identities were associated with more pessimistic dispositions about cognitive aging. This relationship, however, was found only among women. Discussion. Age identity shapes cognitive aging dispositions, though the gendered nature of this relationship remains somewhat unclear. The fi ndings give further evidence about the far-reaching implications of age identity for successful aging and suggest that future work can explicate how subjective aging processes may differ by gender.
Journal of Aging Studies, 2002
Using data from 666 Midwesterners, we reexamine the issue of age identity. We consider five dimensions of age identity-subjective age, others' view of one's age, desired age, desired longevity, and perceived old age. We find that people believe that others think they are the age they feel rather than their actual age. Findings also suggest that ''old age'' is thought to begin in the mid-seventies. Finally, although subjective age increases as people age, it is not a one-to-one correspondence. Rather people feel relatively younger than their age as they get older. D
Older Adults’ Self-Perceptions of Aging and Being Older: A Scoping Review
Gerontologist, 2019
Background and Objectives: Older adults' self-perceptions of aging and being older can influence well-being and quality of life. This systematic scoping review aimed to map out current research on older adults' self-perceptions of aging and being older. Research Design and Methods: The scoping review followed Arksey and O'Malley's methodological framework. A total of 5,037 records were identified (duplicates removed). After screening, a final 148 papers were included. Descriptives, including year of publication, methodology, age, gender, and location of participants, were calculated. Thematic analyses were conducted examining ways in which the topic was conceptualized. Results: The most frequent method used in the research was quantitative. Participants were from 38 different countries. There were more female participants than male. Seven themes representing the main research emphasis emerged: attitudes towards one's own aging (n = 48), aging well (n = 23), aging stereotypes, self-stigma (n = 23), construction of aging identities (n = 22), subjective age (n = 18), the aging body (n = 8), and future self-views (n = 6). Discussion and Implications: The research within these themes approach self-perceptions of aging using varying points of reference for what participants compare their age to. The methods used to illicit aging perspectives held their own assumptions about aging.
International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health
Given the global trends toward an aging society and the increased desire for healthy aging in late life, this study examines older adults’ perceptions of aging and their physical identity through their engagement in physical activities. Adopting a grounded theory, we interviewed 15 individuals aged 65 years and older, who were involved in physical activities on a regular basis. This study provided a final model depicting (a) divergent and convergent modes of strategies and socioemotional aspects of physical identity development in later life and (b) different strategies employed between younger-old versus older-old age groups and between participants who have underlying health conditions and those who do not. These findings add a contextual explanation of identity development in later life and stress the recurring process of physical identity development.