Social involvement and self-fulfillment have both been found to relate positively to a wide variety of health variables; yet in some situations social involvement and self-fulfillment seem to conflict. There is evidence that such conflicts have negative implications for health. This two-year study will explore interactive relationships between areas of social involvement and areas of self-fulfillment as these are associated with health in a sample of professional women in their 50's and 60's.
Specific aims are (1) to create and validate instruments to assess interactions between social involvement and self-fulfillment and related constructs and (2) to explore interactive relationships with health among these constructs through cross-sectional study, especially as these have implications of cumulative, compensative and/or conflictual relationships between social involvements and self-fulfillment. Based on a psychobiological model of health, other variables to be included as background factors include focus on values, thinking styles, personality, life circumstances, adaptive styles, and power. Approximately 500 female alumni of Yale University School of Nursing (Master's degree; Class of 1944-1958), now between 55 and 65 years of age, comprise the target population; this group is specially chosen for the characteristic of sensitivity to tension between social involvement and self-fulfillment. In the first year, instrumentation developed for this study will be pretested (n=100), and validity will be established; a portion of the pre-test sample will be interviewed. In the second year, the remaining subjects will be surveyed, and research questions will be explored through correlational, regression, and path analyses. Psychological mechanisms and social situations supportive of non-conflictual relationships between social involvement and self-fulfillment will be identified. This research will lead to development of intervention hypotheses relevant to clinical practice and subsequent experimental study of the healthful balance between social involvement and self-fulfillment; it may also lay the foundation for further prospective study of this sample.
| Dixon, J K; Dixon, J P; Hickey, M (1993) Energy as a central factor in the self-assessment of health. ANS Adv Nurs Sci 15:1-12 |
| Dixon, J P; Dixon, J K; Spinner, J C (1991) Tensions between career and interpersonal commitments as a risk factor for cardiovascular disease among women. Women Health 17:33-57 |
| Dixon, J; Dixon, J; Spinner, J et al. (1991) Psychometric and descriptive perspectives of illness impact over the life span. Nurs Res 40:51-6 |
| Dixon, J P; Dixon, J K; Spinner, J (1989) Perceptions of life-pattern disintegrity as a link in the relationship between stress and illness. ANS Adv Nurs Sci 11:1-11 |
