BLACK-AND-WHITE COLLEGE-STUDENTS CHOICES OF DESCRIPTORS FOR OLDER WOMEN AND OLDER WOMEN RELATIVES

Black and white students from two different educational institutions ( N=107) completed demographic information as well as a forty word instr ument asking them to rate the words as to applicability regarding olde r women in general and a chosen older woman relative. Investigators we re interested to know if there would be differences in the rating of t he words by the two races for the two groups of older women. The most interesting result was the positive words chosen by each race and the ''closeness'' rating. Blacks chose ''beautiful,'' ''gentle,'' and ''ki nd.'' Whites chose ''experienced'' and ''fun.'' When the words were lo oked at by categories of positive, neutral, and negative, more positiv e words were chosen.