The aged subculture hypothesis: social integration, gerontophilia and self-conception

Arnold Rose predicted that concentrated interaction among older people would lead to participation in an aged subculture, the development of aging group consciousness and enhanced self-conception. Previous research has failed to focus directly on these issues and has been plagued by problems related to the self-selection and nonrepresentativeness of retirement community residents. Samples from two elderly central city HUD projects, three service-enriched and relatively expensive urban life care settings and three age-concentrated settlements in the Ozarks (N = 897) are compared to a national Harris Survey. Selective recruitment and self-selection effects are controlled by the use of shadow samples drawn from the Harris survey, matched community by community with the age, gender, marital status, education, income and race of the residents. Rose's hypothesis is supported but modified. Residents of the eight community settings show qualitatively more positive social integration, distinctive patterns of preference for interaction with and perceptions of the elderly, and an enhanced positive self-conception. In line with Rosow's prediction, however, evidence for any politically oriented aging group consciousness is absent. The aged subculture in retirement communities tends to be retreatist in content rather than activist.