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A Study on the Life World of Chinese Elders with Assisted Caring by Institutions: From the Perspective of Ethnographic Psychology

Received: 7 August 2018     Accepted: 4 September 2018     Published: 11 October 2018
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Abstract

The global society is gradually paying more and more attention to the elders with the rapidly ageing population in the world, and Chinese researchers pay more attention to how to care for the elders. The current study focuses on the elders living in a nursing home and living at home with community assistance. Employing ethnographic methods to study aging psychology, researchers interviewed 21 elders to analyze the focus in their life world during two year of participatory observation, meanwhile the physical and social environments definite sample attributes of elders with assisted caring by institutions. The result shows that although the backgrounds and personalities of these group members were different, they talked about common topics such as age, health, family relationships, neighborhood relationships, incomes, life feelings, and life strategies. The common theme was how to live a good life, including that Living in Nursing Home to Adapt to Frailty in Body, the Life in the Nursing Home is a continuous form of the Life at Home, Keeping positive to live a Good Life and believing that Longevity Is a Blessing. Either silent behaviors or voiced conversations are showing the obvious meaning of life. In a modern society with advanced technology causing elders to be isolated, this is thought-provoking.

Published in Psychology and Behavioral Sciences (Volume 7, Issue 3)
DOI 10.11648/j.pbs.20180703.14
Page(s) 62-68
Creative Commons

This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, provided the original work is properly cited.

Copyright

Copyright © The Author(s), 2018. Published by Science Publishing Group

Keywords

Life World, Assisted Caring by Institutions, Elders, Ethnographic Psychology

References
[1] United Nations. Political Announcement in Madrid, adopted from http://www. un.org/chinese/esa/ageing/declaration. htm. 2002-04-12) [2016-11-19].
[2] J. Melorose, R. Perroy, and S. Careas. World Population Prospects: The 2015 Revision, Key Findings and Advance Tables. In “Working Paper No. ESA/P/WP. 241,2015 (pp. 1-59)”.
[3] T. Wang and C. Hou.“A Topical Structure Analysis on Chinese Aging Study and Practice in the View of Culture Psychology”. In Proceedings of the Second Summit Forum of China’s Cultural Psychology, T. Xie, L. Hale, and J. Zhang, Eds. America: The American Scholars Press, 2016, (pp. 164-170).
[4] K. Shen. (2013) Change of Chinese elders living mode. Beijing:Social Science Literature Press, pp. 18, 20, 92-123,”
[5] Ministry of Civil Affairs of the People’s Republic of China, (2017a)The statistic report of social service development in 2016, adopted from http://www.mca.gov.cn/article/sj/tjgb/201708/20170815005382.shtml [2017-08-03]
[6] Ministry of Civil Affairs of the People’s Republic of China, (2017b). Annual Statistic: data of social service in China. Chinese Statistic Press.
[7] Y. Zeng. (2010) A study on the elders’ family, health and caring cost. Beijing: science press, P172, 176.
[8] X. Lin and Y. Liu. (2015) Compare on the life quality of the elders between living home and nursing home in the urban. Jinan: Shandong People Press, pp91-95.
[9] A. M. Seaver. (1994) My world now. life in a nursing home, from the inside. Newsweek, 123(26), 11.
[10] Porter E. J., T. O. Oyesanya, and K. A. Johnson (2013). Hoping to see the future I prefer: an element of life-world for older women living alone. Ans Adv Nurs Sci, 36(1), 26-41.
[11] Baltes, P. B. and J. Smith, (2003) New frontiers in the future of aging: from successful aging of the young old to the dilemmas of the fourth age. Gerontology 49 123-135.
[12] Baltes, M. M. and L. L. Carstensen (1996). The process of successful ageing. Ageing And Society 16, 397-422.
[13] Mather, M. and L. L. Carstensen (2005). Aging and motivated cognition: the positivity effect in attention and memory. Trends in Cognitive Sciences 9, 496-502.
[14] Hsu, L. M., J. Chung, and E. J. Langer (2010). The influence of age-related cues on health and longevity. Perspectives on Psychological Science A Journal of the Association for Psychological Science 5, 632.
[15] W. Wu. (2016) Cell phone in the life world of the elders living in the countryside. (Master dissertation, Centre China Normal University).
Cite This Article
  • APA Style

    Tangsheng Wang, Siyu Qian, Yabei Zeng. (2018). A Study on the Life World of Chinese Elders with Assisted Caring by Institutions: From the Perspective of Ethnographic Psychology. Psychology and Behavioral Sciences, 7(3), 62-68. https://doi.org/10.11648/j.pbs.20180703.14

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    ACS Style

    Tangsheng Wang; Siyu Qian; Yabei Zeng. A Study on the Life World of Chinese Elders with Assisted Caring by Institutions: From the Perspective of Ethnographic Psychology. Psychol. Behav. Sci. 2018, 7(3), 62-68. doi: 10.11648/j.pbs.20180703.14

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    AMA Style

    Tangsheng Wang, Siyu Qian, Yabei Zeng. A Study on the Life World of Chinese Elders with Assisted Caring by Institutions: From the Perspective of Ethnographic Psychology. Psychol Behav Sci. 2018;7(3):62-68. doi: 10.11648/j.pbs.20180703.14

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  • @article{10.11648/j.pbs.20180703.14,
      author = {Tangsheng Wang and Siyu Qian and Yabei Zeng},
      title = {A Study on the Life World of Chinese Elders with Assisted Caring by Institutions: From the Perspective of Ethnographic Psychology},
      journal = {Psychology and Behavioral Sciences},
      volume = {7},
      number = {3},
      pages = {62-68},
      doi = {10.11648/j.pbs.20180703.14},
      url = {https://doi.org/10.11648/j.pbs.20180703.14},
      eprint = {https://article.sciencepublishinggroup.com/pdf/10.11648.j.pbs.20180703.14},
      abstract = {The global society is gradually paying more and more attention to the elders with the rapidly ageing population in the world, and Chinese researchers pay more attention to how to care for the elders. The current study focuses on the elders living in a nursing home and living at home with community assistance. Employing ethnographic methods to study aging psychology, researchers interviewed 21 elders to analyze the focus in their life world during two year of participatory observation, meanwhile the physical and social environments definite sample attributes of elders with assisted caring by institutions. The result shows that although the backgrounds and personalities of these group members were different, they talked about common topics such as age, health, family relationships, neighborhood relationships, incomes, life feelings, and life strategies. The common theme was how to live a good life, including that Living in Nursing Home to Adapt to Frailty in Body, the Life in the Nursing Home is a continuous form of the Life at Home, Keeping positive to live a Good Life and believing that Longevity Is a Blessing. Either silent behaviors or voiced conversations are showing the obvious meaning of life. In a modern society with advanced technology causing elders to be isolated, this is thought-provoking.},
     year = {2018}
    }
    

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    AB  - The global society is gradually paying more and more attention to the elders with the rapidly ageing population in the world, and Chinese researchers pay more attention to how to care for the elders. The current study focuses on the elders living in a nursing home and living at home with community assistance. Employing ethnographic methods to study aging psychology, researchers interviewed 21 elders to analyze the focus in their life world during two year of participatory observation, meanwhile the physical and social environments definite sample attributes of elders with assisted caring by institutions. The result shows that although the backgrounds and personalities of these group members were different, they talked about common topics such as age, health, family relationships, neighborhood relationships, incomes, life feelings, and life strategies. The common theme was how to live a good life, including that Living in Nursing Home to Adapt to Frailty in Body, the Life in the Nursing Home is a continuous form of the Life at Home, Keeping positive to live a Good Life and believing that Longevity Is a Blessing. Either silent behaviors or voiced conversations are showing the obvious meaning of life. In a modern society with advanced technology causing elders to be isolated, this is thought-provoking.
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Author Information
  • School of Philosophy, Wuhan University, Wuhan City, China

  • Affiliated High School, South China Normal University, Guangzhou City, China

  • Chongqing Nankai Secondary School, Chongqing City, China

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