Motives that bridge diverse activities of older people

We report on the results of a pilot study to measure global motives that may help explain patterns of activities of older people. We hypothesize that there may be multiple motives, each of which helps explain participation in more than one activity. We describe the development of a set of conceptually based measures. We then report on the results of a pilot survey conducted in eastern Massachusetts that explored the relationship between the motives and a diverse set of activities. We identified seven distinct motives: seek challenge, avoid frustration, need income, seek mental stimulation, sociable, contentment, and altruism. We found that the motives help to explain overall activity level and participation in specific activities.