The Journals of Gerontology Series B: Psychological Sciences and Social Sciences 59:S358-S359 (2004)
© 2004 The Gerontological Society of America
Authors' Responses:
Jennifer Solomon, PhD and
Jonathan Marx, PhD
Winthrop University, Rock Hill, South Carolina
Address correspondence to Jennifer Solomon, Department of Sociology, Winthrop University, 701 Oakland Ave., Rock Hill, SC 29733. E-mail: solomonj{at}winthrop.edu
Dr. Wassel's comments emphasize the potential that household disbandment has for causing distress. She highlights certain points made in our article concerning minimizing stressors associated with household disbandment. First, older adults should actively seek recipients for their most cherished possessions and take various steps to ensure that the desired person gets the cherished object. Public knowledge of the recipient not only makes family members aware of a gift giver's wishes but also gives the donor the opportunity to explain his/her decision. Thus, family members are better able to understand and accept the gift giver's choice of recipient, reducing the possibility of later conflict over cherished items. Dr. Wassel also suggested that our final gift exchange heuristic complements existing works on successful aging, such as the Preventive and Corrective Proactivity Model of Successful Aging. These are exactly the kinds of elaborations and connections that we hoped the heuristic would encourage.
