Attributions of Autonomy and Competence of Older and Younger Homeless Mentally Ill

This study investigated attributions of autonomy and competence. Respondents completed items following one of four vignettes in which a character was identified as an older male, younger male, older female, or younger female with a history of hallucinations, substance abuse, and living on the street. Respondents viewed the vignette character as suffering from malnutrition, alcoholism, depression, and likely to commit suicide. A General Linear Model revealed harsher perceptions toward the older vignette characters. When controlling for educational exposure to aging and psychopathology, there were significant differences in eight of 37 items (F = 116.270, df = 37, p < .001).