Megumi Tabuchi

Young People’s Reactions Change Elderly People’s Generativity and Narratives: The Effects of Intergenerational Interaction on the Elderly

The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of the young listener’s reaction on the development of generativity and narratives of elderly people. Thirty-four males between the ages of 60 and 82 participated in this experiment in which the listener generations (young/elderly) and listener reactions (empathic/neutral) were controlled. The participants shared and taught their wisdom gained from their past experiences through narratives. Results showed that many elderly people spoke about “lessons from experiences of failure” when there was an empathic reaction from young people, and such narratives were promoted by an increase of generativity. These results suggested the impact of the younger people’s reaction on the elderly people’s psychological development and behavior.

Intergenerational interaction between old and young in creative task

ABSTRACT By comparing intergenerational to same-generation interactions in creative activities, we aimed to reveal characteristic behaviors of older and younger adults in intergenerational interactions using a wooden block task. Four categories (“Proposal request”, “New proposal”, “Reactions to proposal”, “Assessments of partner’s behavior”) were extracted from conversations during task performance. In intergenerational groups, the ratio of utterances of “Proposal request” (encouraging a new proposal to partner) were higher than in same-generation groups for older adults. In intergenerational groups, older people assumed the role of encouraging younger people to suggest new ideas, and older people’s such empathic behaviors might provoke lively arguments.

Intergenerational interactions when transmitting wisdom from older to younger generations

ABSTRACT The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of young people’s reactions to changes in older people’s generativity when wisdom is transmitted to the younger people. Participants included 48 male adults aged 63–77 years. Each participant was assigned to either the condition of “wisdom from experiences of failure” or the “wisdom from experiences of success” condition. Participants expressed narratives to younger “listeners” or recipients, who were confederates and were instructed to respond either empathetically or neutrally. Results showed that only in the “wisdom from experiences of failure” condition, generativity was promoted when young recipients responded in an empathic manner. Generativity decreased when the young recipients responded in a neutral manner. Based on these results, the differential effects of responses from younger individuals to older persons’ transmission of stories about negative experiences are discussed.