Langer & Rodin, 1976: Taking responsability of themselves and making their own choices improved health and well-being among nursing-home residents
Reference:
Langer, E. J., & Rodin, J. (1976). The effects of choice and enhanced personal responsibility for the aged: A field experiment in an institutional setting. Journal of personality and social psychology, 34(2), 191.
Download PDFSummary:
Nursing-home residents were told of their many responsibilities and choices and given a plant and told it was their responsibility to take care of it. As compared to a control-condition floor, this increased (at 3-weeks) residents’ self-reported happiness, activity level, and nurses’ judgment of improvement and (at 18-months) nurses’ rating of activity level, doctors’ rating of health, and reduced the mortality rate from 30% to 15% (Rodin & Langer, 1977).
Psychological Process:
What Desired Meaning is At Stake?
What is the Person Trying to Understand?
Selves (My Own and Others')How?
Psychological Question Addressed
Can I control important aspects of my life?Can I control important aspects of my life?Psychological Question Addressed
Can I control important aspects of my life?Psychological Process 2:
Psychological Process 3:
Social Area:
Health
Intervention Technique:
Direct labeling, of a situation; Prompting by altering situations