On the social ecology of dependence and independence in elderly nursing home residents: A replication and extension

Abstract

A sample of 40 elderly residents was observed for 14 days on each of three consecutive occasions separated by 3 months. The observations focused on interactions involving the elderly resident and social partners. The results indicated a high level of stability across occasions in resident behaviors. The interactional and behavioral profiles observed were similar across length of institutionalization, sex, and health status of residents for the institutional context studied. Examination of interactional patterns for the different resident behaviors, however, revealed quite discrepant social contingencies. Following dependent self-care behaviors of residents, interactional responses by social partners represented a continuous supportive behavior contingency; following independent self-care behaviors, no social contingencies were observed. Similarly, obstructively engaged and nonengaged resident behaviors were not followed by any social contingencies; following constructively engaged behaviors of residents, an intermittent supportive contin-gency by social partners was found. The results are discussed in relation to learned helplessness and control. Key Words: Social interaction, Field research, Institutional behavior, Sequential lag analysis DEPENDENCE is not only a "conspicuous fea-ture of early childhood " (Maccoby & Mas-ters, 1970, p. 72) but also a feature of old age (Exton-Smith & Evans, 1977; Kalish, 1969; Lehr, 1977). Recently, efforts have been made to ex-amine the conditions under which dependence occurs or does not occur. Such process-oriented research includes efforts to consider cognitive per-sonality-related mechanisms (i.e., Langer & Rodin, 1976; Rodin & Langer, 1977; Seligman, 1975) and the role of social interactions for the understanding of dependence (Baltes et al., 1980; Barton et al., 1980; Lester & Baltes, 1978