CONSENSUS AND THE DOMAIN OF PERSONAL RELATIONS AMONG OLDER ADULTS

A sample of older men and women (n = 225) ranked a set of qualitative attributes of personal relations according to their degree of characterization of interaction with friends and relatives. Following the consensus methodology of Romney et al. (1986), each respondent ranking, or profile, was correlated with every other ranking to see how much respondents correlate' with one another, yielding a measure of consensus in thinking about personal relationships. Although degree of consensus did not differ significantly across sex-marital groups, the mental health correlates of consensus differed between men and women, providing partial support for gender-linked differences in interpersonal culture. © 1990, Sage Publications. All rights reserved.