Ranking of Words Chosen to Describe Older Women in General and Older Female Relatives

Abstract

Two-hundred-ninety-six people completed a rating scale of 40 words that could be used to describe older women. Using Pearson Product Moment Correlations, there were weak but significant relations between the participants' age, gender, education, number of visits, and the applicability rating of words. There was a greater relationship when looking at the older female relative's health and the applicability of words with sick at a .69 and slow with a .437 correlation at the .O1 significance level. When looking at relationships between closeness of the respondent with the older female relative, considerably more words were found to have some relationship with seven having between a .40 and .485 at the .O1 significance level. It would seem that the relative's health and the closeness of the respondent with the older female relative indicate how the words are perceived and thus ranked.