Household behaviors must be understood in terms of a hierarchy of behavioral competence within which complexity determines the location of behaviors that can be evaluated in terms of basic health and social-normative criteria. Older people's household behaviors as well as higher-order behaviors are schematized in terms of physical and instrumental activities of daily living (ADL). Data on impairment rates for ADLs and time budget studies are cited to emphasize the importance of the home environment. Other behaviors that represent needs for autonomy, support, and proactivity are discussed, as are research needs, both for development of measures of microbehaviors and for the study of behaviors designed to achieve alternative routes to an instrumental goal whose preferred means of attainment has been disturbed by physical impairment.
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