Psychological characteristics of Japanese aged: a comparison of sentence completion test responses of older and younger adults.

The psychological characteristics of 199 older Japanese adults were compared to those of 224 Japanese university students by means of a 20-item sentence completion procedure. Older Japanese adults were found to have positive images of their family, while the younger adults were more positive with respect to their friends. Older adults displayed more positive self-perceptions with respect to their present self; the young were more negative with respect to their past self-images and more positive with respect to their future self-images. With respect to present self, women displayed more positive self-perceptions consistently; men displayed more negative self-perceptions. Both age groups tended to view the aging process as a negative one, although their attitudes toward the aged were relatively positive. Young adults indicated that happiness was obtained through personal or social achievements, a result comparable to that found in American students. Older Japanese adults found pleasure in associations with their families and in being healthy. Approximately one-half of each age group viewed death in a neutral manner, although the old were more likely than the young to view death positively whereas the young were more likely than the old to view death negatively.