The examination of the attitude of people in emerging adulthood towards old people in terms of altruism levels and demographic variables

The aim of this thesis is to examine the relationship between altruism of university students who are in emerging adulthood and their attitude towards the elderly. In addition, it is aimed to explore the impact of gender, social and economic status on the participants' attitude towards senior citizens. The participants of the research consist of 399 university students attending to Cag University and Toros University. These students were selected through random sampling and included in the research via various social platforms such as e-mail, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and Whatsapp. The participants are made up of people who lived with an old person from their family. 275 of these participants are female and 124 of them are male. Along with personal information form, in order to examine the altruism level of the attendees' as well as their attitude towards old people, Altruism Level Scale and Attitude towards Old People Scale were utilized respectively. In conclusion, it has been observed that general attitude, positive attitude, negative attitude towards the elderly as well as altruism scores are not impacted by gender. The income of the participants were analysed in two different categories; students whose income is between 0 and the amount of monthly stipend and those with income above monthly stipend. It has been indicated that general attitude towards the elderly, positive attitude and negative attitude scores are not influenced by level of income. However, it has also been found that altruism scores correlate with level of income and students whose income is below monthly stipend have considerably higher altruism scores than their counterparts. Regarding the social status of the participants, no significant difference has been found between altruism scores and the general attitude towards the elderly as well as positive and negative attitude. Moreover, positive relationship has been observed between the altruism level of the participants and their attitude towards old people. Key words: altruism, the attitude towards old people, university students