Key points are not available for this paper at this time.
EVENTS requiring adaptation and reorganiza-tion of behavior and attitudes occur in maturity as well as in earlier stages of person-ality development. The manner in which the adult accomplishes these changes and the re-sulting level of adjustment is an area of con-siderable research interest. Measurements of activities and attitudes have been used as indicators of social adjustment of older people. Britton (1963) has compared seven measures of adjustment and has identi-fied three underlying factors. The first was an activity factor, the second a sociability factor, and the third a composure-serenity-integrity factor which was oriented toward self-satisfaction and presumably measured by an attitude inventory. Thus, adjustment (at any age) consists of both inner (personal) and outer (social) aspects (Britton, 1963). Both the activity theory of aging and the disengagement theory have proved to be productive concepts. Those who favor the former believe that optimal aging involves con-tinuing in old age the activities and attitudes developed by the individual in middle age. In contrast, proponents of the disengagement theory consider the mutual withdrawal of emo-tional investment between the elderly and society a normal phenomenon, accepted and even desired by the aging individual (Cum-ming Henry, 1961; Cumming, 1964). Many gerontologists regard aging as too complex a process to be described adequately by any single generalization and prefer an approach whereby styles of individual adjustment are related to change in characteristics of person-
Stone et al. (1966) studied this question.