Personal and social value concerns of Scandinavian elderly: a multivariate study

This study is a descriptive account of the results obtained by a set of three attitudes scales, as part of a larger study on the value concerns of two samples of Scandinavian elderly, one Danish and the other Norwegian. The measuring instruments were the Cantril Self Anchoring Scale, the Life Satisfaction Index-A and Rosencranz-McNevin's Semantic Differential. The results indicate that both samples are equally preoccupied with personal security rather than economic concerns. The Danish sample perceives greater congruence between life goals and achievements than the Norwegians. The Norwegians see their young as deviant from the modal ideology of the adult world, while the Danes perceive the young as drifters, but functionally efficient. No correlation was found between personal life satisfaction and acceptance of youth, a finding at variance with results obtained by the authors among previous U.S. Samples of aged.