Older adults' perceptions of psychopathology.

ABSTRACT

In this study, 40 older female and 40 older male community volunteers (age range = 60-78 years) read fictional case descriptions of a healthy person and of individuals with one of five types of psychopathology (paranoia, depression, dementia, hypochondriasis, and alcohol abuse). In each group, 1/2 of the volunteers read descriptions of an older woman and 1/2 read analogous descriptions of an older man. Participants rated the psychological disturbance of the stimulus individuals. The hypothesis that older women would rate symptoms of psychopathology of elderly people as more severe than would older men was not supported. Normal stimulus individuals were typically perceived to be extremely healthy, thus, strongly accounting for a main effect of pathology type. The five psychopathology conditions also were viewed differentially in terms of severity. These results suggest that older women are no more perceptive of psychopathology than are older men.