ABSTRACT
This chapter provides some results, based on data from the middle aged and older men of the Druze sect resident in highland villages of the Golan, Galilee, and Carmel regions of Syria and Israel. The villages of the Druze, sited on hill-tops for purposes of defense, are scattered through the highland regions of Lebanon, Syria, and Galilean Israel. The overall aim of the research of which the study of Druze is a part have been to establish, through application of the comparative method, some basis for a developmental psychology of aging. The comparative analysis of the Druze projective materials, between age cohorts and across cultures, supports the hypothesis of universal psychological patterns in aging, developments which are mandatory regardless of the requirements set by particular cultures. The theory of later life disengagement put forward by Cumming and Henry is perhaps the most prominent conception in the social psychology of aging.
