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Centre for Policy on Ageing | |
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Gift wrapping ourselves
— the final gift exchange | | Author(s) | Jonathan I Marx, Jennifer Crew Solomon, Lee Q Miller |
| Journal title | Journals of Gerontology: Series B, Psychological Sciences and Social Sciences, vol 59B, no 5, September 2004 |
| Pages | pp S273-S280 |
| Source | http://www.geron.org |
| Keywords | House removal ; Gifts [elderly] ; Assets [elderly] ; Attitude ; Qualitative Studies ; United States of America. |
| Annotation | This qualitative study examines the "final gift exchange" process by which older people give cherished possessions in return for lasting appreciation. The authors interviewed 54 middle and upper middle class people aged 50-90 (39 women) who had to dispose of personal objects when moving to smaller residences. Goffman's spiraling strategy was used to analyse people's reports of disposing of personal possessions. Three significant dimensions process were identified: family, economy and self; and a heuristic was created describing eight ideal-type gift exchange scenarios by categorising objects valued or not by family, economy or the gift giver's material self. By applying the heuristic, a lack of shared definitions of the meaning and value of objects was observed, created dilemmas in disposing of personal objects, particularly those connected to a person's material self. They suggest for making the process go more smoothly, such as inquiring about preferences of others and telling stories associated with objects to create shared definition of objects' significance to the giver and/or to family history. (RH). |
| Accession Number | CPA-051124206 A |
| Classmark | TNH: JFG: JD: DP: 3DP: 7T |
Data © Centre for Policy on Ageing |
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| ...from the Ageinfo database published by Centre for Policy on Ageing. |
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