Social Interaction and Depression in Elderly Individuals

Abstract

Forty-two elderly individuals received partial or complete testing on: (a) the Zung Self-Rating Depression Scale; (b) frequency of social interaction (quantity of social interaction); and (c) round-robin reports of disclosures among peers, that yielded whether the persons had reciprocally intimate relationships (quality of social interaction). It was found that depression was: (a) negatively correlated with the measure of the quantity of social interaction entailing frequent conversations; and (b) contrary to expectation, positively correlated with having reciprocally intimate relationships. Also, the individuals' intimacy of disclosure to peers was not correlated with the intimacy of disclosure received from them; indicating a lack of reciprocity of self-disclosure. The findings were interpreted as showing that depression in elderly individuals is negatively related to having peers to “talk to” frequently, but positively related to having reciprocal exchanges of negative communications.