COMMUNITY INVOLVEMENT, PERCEIVED CONTROL, AND ATTITUDES TOWARD AGING AMONG LESBIANS AND GAY MEN

A person-environment approach was used to explore the relationship between community involvement and attitudes toward aging among middle-age and older lesbians and gay men. Specifically, this study investigated the relationships between participation in gay community activities, perceived control, and aging-related concerns among two partially-overlapping convenience samples of middle-aged and older lesbians and gay men (N = 136). As expected, perceived control was negatively associated with aging concerns, while community involvement was surprisingly positively associated with the latter. Although the hypothesized interaction between control and community participation was not supported, exploratory analysis revealed an interaction between participation and a measure of autonomy in the single men sample. Specifically, the combination of high autonomy and low community participation was associated with the lowest levels of aging-related concern. Findings are discussed with respect to the implications of having aging-related concerns, the limitations of both control and community, and different possible pathways to positive aging.