Nakagawa Takeshi, Jopp Daniela S, Gondo Yasuyuki, Lehrfeld Jonathan, Rott Christoph, Oswald Frank
Section of NILS-LSA, National Center for Geriatrics and Gerontology, Aichi, Japan.
Japan Society for the Promotion of Science, Tokyo, Japan.
Innov Aging. 2018 Jul 11;2(2):igy020. doi: 10.1093/geroni/igy020. eCollection 2018 Jun.
Valuation of life (VOL) represents a construct capturing individuals' active attachment to their life. The majority of studies on VOL were conducted in North America and Europe where personal autonomy and independence are highly valued, leaving open the question about the relevance of this construct in interdependence-oriented cultures. Using a framework of cross-cultural and life-span theories, the present study compared levels and predictors of VOL between the young-old and old-old individuals from Germany and Japan.
Two hundred fifty-seven Germans and 248 Japanese, matched by age, gender, education, and IADL, answered a 5-item VOL scale and shared information on sociodemographic, social, and health resources.
Germans' VOL levels were higher than in Japanese participants. Both culture- and age-moderated predictions of VOL: education was significant only in the young-old Japanese, and close social partners mattered in the old-old, not in the young-old. Health determined VOL irrespective of culture and age.
The findings suggest that cultural values and aging processes should be considered to better understand how individuals value their life and to help older adults to feel that his/her life is meaningful and worth living.
生命价值（VOL）是一种反映个体对自身生命积极依恋程度的概念。大多数关于生命价值的研究是在北美和欧洲进行的，这些地区高度重视个人自主性和独立性，因此生命价值这一概念在以相互依存为导向的文化中的相关性仍有待探讨。本研究运用跨文化和生命周期理论框架，比较了德国和日本年轻老年人与高龄老年人的生命价值水平及其预测因素。
257名德国人和248名日本人参与了研究，他们在年龄、性别、教育程度和日常生活活动能力方面进行了匹配，回答了一个包含5个条目的生命价值量表，并分享了社会人口学、社会和健康资源方面的信息。
德国人的生命价值水平高于日本参与者。文化和年龄对生命价值的预测均有调节作用：教育程度仅对日本年轻老年人的生命价值有显著影响，亲密社会伙伴对高龄老年人的生命价值有影响，而对年轻老年人没有影响。健康状况无论文化和年龄如何，都决定着生命价值。
研究结果表明，为了更好地理解个体如何珍视自己的生命，并帮助老年人感受到自己的生命有意义且值得活下去，应该考虑文化价值观和衰老过程。
