| dc.description.abstract | The present research was designed to investigate the
relationships among; a) depression, b) the quantity of
social interaction and, c) the quality of social
interaction in the elderly. Twenty-three residents aged
72 to 98 of a rural senior citizens home were tested. The
subjects were administered the Zung Self-Rating Depression
Scale and Flavell's (1975) measure of visual
perspective-taking. The quantity of social interaction
was measured by the subject's self-reports of their
frequency of interaction with various groups of people and
the number of persons they talked to most frequently. The
measure of the quality of social interaction was derived
from a round robin procedure based on the subjects'
reported self-disclosure to peers. This enabled the
identification of subjects who had relationships
characterized by reciprocal intimate disclosures - or
confidants. The analysis provided partial support for the
validity of the quantity and the quality of social
interaction measures. Consistent with previous research,
depression was negatively correlated with one measure of
quantity of social interaction, the number of peers with
whom the subject frequently talked. Contrary to
expectation, perspective-taking was not significantly
correlated with the measures of quantity of social interaction or the measures of reciprocal disclosure.
Contrary to the quality of social interaction research, the
intimacy of the subject's disclosures and the intimacy of
the target's disclosures were not significantly correlated,
indicating that disclosure patterns among the elderly were
not reciprocal. In addition, having a relationship
characterized by reciprocal intimate disclosure was
positively, rather than negatively correlated with
depression. This indicates that the more depressed an
elderly individual is, the more the individual had in
objective terms - confidants. One interpretation of this
latter finding was advanced, that depressed elderly
reciprocate personal information in the form of negative
perceptions or complaints. | |
