Disengagement Reconsidered: Awareness of Finitude

This paper summarizes the research concerning the disengagement theory of aging. It examines awareness of finitude, defined as the individual's estimate of his time remaining before death, as a variable which may explain some of the contradictory findings of the disengagement literature. Interviews with 120 residents of old age institutions revealed awareness of finitude to be a better predictor of disengagement than was chronological age. Future research should examine whether awareness of finitude is also a significant predictor of disengagement outside of institutional settings.