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Abstract
Institutionalization of the aged has been viewed as an environmental stressor, producing covert negative affect which is manifest as personal loss themes in the individual's earliest memories. It was hypothesized that reinforcement given for a cognitive task would produce a positive emotional response in the individual and result in decreased personal loss feelings.
Subjects were 64 elderly persons (aged 65–88); half of each sex, half nursing home and half community residents, half receiving reinforcement and half receiving none. Subjects' earliest memories were scored for personal loss themes. Significant findings were that among subjects who were reinforced, those in the community had higher loss scores than those in the nursing home; there was no difference in loss scores between community and nursing residents who had not been reinforced. Among community subjects, those who were reinforced had significantly higher loss scores than those who were not; the opposite tendency was observed in nursing home subjects.