A comparison of externality, anxiety, and life satisfaction in two aged populations.

An attempt was made to find the relationship between locus of control, anxiety, and life satisfaction and to assess the impact of environmental factors upon these variables in two distinct elderly populations (20 nursing home residents and 20 active elderly). It was hypothesized that internality would be positively correlated with low anxiety and high life satisfaction and that the active elderly group would score higher on internality and life satisfaction and lower on anxiety than the nursing home group. Assessment instruments included a revision of Rotter's I-E Scale, questions from certain MMPI scales, and a life satisfaction questionnaire. Results showed significant correlations between the three measures of locus control, anxiety, and life satisfaction in the nursing home group but not in the active elderly group. As predicted, the active elderly were more internal (p less than .05), showed higher life satisfaction (p less than .01), and reported less anxiety (p less than .01) than the nursing home group.