Centre for Policy on Ageing



Age and emotional response the Northridge earthquake — a longitudinal analysis
Author(s)	Bob G Knight, Margaret Gatz, Keeneth Heller
Journal title	Psychology and Aging, vol 15, no 4, December 2000
Pages	pp 627-634
Keywords	Anxiety ; Depression ; Attitude ; Earthquakes ; Age groups [elderly] ; Longitudinal surveys ; United States of America.
Annotation	Cross-sectional studies have found older people to have lower levels of emotional distress after natural disasters. The maturation hypothesis suggests that older people are less reactive to stress events, whereas the inoculation hypothesis argues that prior experience with disaster is protective. 166 adults aged 30 to 102 were interviewed regarding the 1994 Northridge, California earthquake. Longitudinal data were available on depressed mood before and after the earthquake. The maturation hypothesis was generally not supported. The young-old were less depressed. However, this age difference was present before the earthquake. The old-old showed lowest levels of earthquake-specific rumination, but age did not buffer the the relationship between damage exposure and rumination. The inoculation hypothesis was supported for depressed mood. Previous experience of an earthquake was related to lower post-earthquake depression scores. (RH).
Accession Number	CPA-010312204 A
Classmark	ENP: ENR: DP: RG5: BB: 3J: 7T
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...from the Ageinfo database published by Centre for Policy on Ageing.