THE STATE COMPONENT IN SELF-REPORTED WORLDVIEWS AND RELIGIOUS BELIEFSOF OLDER ADULTS - THE MACARTHUR SUCCESSFUL AGING STUDIES

Meaningful and measurable aspects of short-term intraindividual variab ility have been established in what are conceptualized to be relativel y stable interindividual differences dimensions. Illustrative are anxi ety and other temperament traits as well as certain kinds of cognitive abilities. Reclamation of ''signal'' from the ''noise'' of intraindiv idual variability has rested heavily on research designs that involve frequently repeated observations. We extended this line of research to other traitlike domains by examining biweekly self-reports of worldvi ews and religious beliefs of a sample of elderly participants. The res ults indicated that not only is there occasion-to-occasion variability in the self-reports but the structure of these fluctuations is consis tent over time and bears considerable resemblance to structures report ed from cross-sectional data.