The article investigated the relationship between death anxiety, attitudes toward older adults, and personal anxiety toward one's own aging in a group of 197 older men and women. As predicted, negative attitudes toward other older adults were predicted by personal anxieties about aging and death, and, more specifically, fear of the unknown. In addition, several distinctive anxieties were noted for particular subgroups of respondents. Older women scored higher on the Fear of the Dead subscale of the Multidimensional Fear of Death Scale (MFODS) than did men. Caucasian participants displayed higher Fear of the Dying Process than did older African American participants. Lastly, older African American participants reported higher levels of death anxiety on 3 of the subscales of the Multidimensional Fear of Death Scale (Fear of the Unknown, Fear of Conscious Death, and Fear for the Body after Death) when compared with older Caucasian participants and also tended to accord less social value to the elderly. These findings are interpreted in terms of patterns of socialization, and their implications for end-of-life care preferences are noted.

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Two studies investigated the effects of image and issue information on evaluations of political candidates. The extent to which voters base their evaluations on stereotypic image information (i.e., candidates' physical attractiveness) and nonstereotypic image information (i.e., individuating personality descriptions of the candidates) was examined. Also of interest were the factors that lead to image-based, as opposed to issue-based, evaluations of the candidates. Results demonstrated that (a) physical appearance influenced evaluations even when individuating personality information was provided, (b) subjects' evaluations were less influenced by their agreement with the candidates' issue positions when image information was presented than when it was not, and (c) subjects' evaluations were less influenced by issue agreement when a candidate's image was evaluatively mixed than when it was evaluatively consistent.

The present project investigated the relationship between death fear and threat, attitudes toward the elderly, and personal anxiety toward one's own aging in a group of 145 nursing home employees and a matched comparison group of 130 individuals who worked in non-death related occupations. Contrary to predictions, nursing home personnel did not have higher levels of death threat when compared to controls; in fact, control group subjects had higher levels of death concern on two dimensions of death fear (fear of the dead and fear of significant others dying). However, the results also indicated that increasing levels of death concern were associated with greater anxiety toward aging, especially in the nursing home sample, and nursing personnel displayed significantly fewer positive attitudes toward the elderly than did controls.

Essays were gathered from fifty-three elderly nursing home residents about the strongest meaning in their lives. These elderly nursing home residents most often reported the category of family relationships as central, followed by pleasure and then health. A chi-square analysis showed a significant difference between the type of meaning of the elderly nursing home residents and those of younger adults. An additional chi-square analysis found no significant difference between the nursing home residents and a group of golden anniversary couples' meanings. Finally, our results indicate that elderly nursing home residents do not report an absence of meaning in their lives.

The present project investigated the relationship between death fear, attitudes toward the elderly, and personal anxiety toward one's own aging in a group of nursing home employees. Contrary to predictions, nursing professionals (i.e., Registered Nurses, Licensed Practical Nurses) did not have higher levels of death concern when compared to Nursing Assistants; in fact, Nursing Assistants had higher levels of death concerns on four components of death fear (fear of the dead, fear of the unknown, fear of consciousness when dead, and fear for body after death). The results also indicated that Nursing Assistants displayed significantly fewer positive attitudes toward the elderly than did nursing professionals.

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