Mw. Katzko et al., THE SELF-CONCEPT OF THE ELDERLY - A CROSS-CULTURAL-COMPARISON, International journal of aging & human development, 46(3), 1998, pp. 171-187
This study examines the self-concept of the elderly in a cross-cultura
l perspective. An open-ended sentence completion methodology was emplo
yed. A sample of elderly Spanish and elderly Dutch were compared to ga
in an idea of the cross-cultural generality of the content of the self
-concept. Analysis focuses on responses to sentences which probed the
respondents' motivations and future plans and goals. Differences could
be interpreted as reflecting an individualistic (Dutch) vs. collectiv
istic (Spanish) distinction between the two cultures. Furthermore, the
findings had implications for how to interpret dimensions of meaningf
ul aging. For example, a dimension such as ''purpose in life'' was mor
e generalizable across the two samples than a dimension such as ''auto
nomy.''