IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/oup/geronb/v73y2018i5p849-859..html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Education and Psychosocial Functioning Among Older Adults: 4-Year Change in Sense of Control and Hopelessness

Author

Listed:
  • Uchechi A Mitchell
  • Jennifer A Ailshire
  • Lauren L Brown
  • Morgan E Levine
  • Eileen M Crimmins

Abstract

Objectives This study investigates education differences in levels and change in sense of control and hopelessness among older adults. Method We used data from the Health and Retirement Study, an ongoing biennial survey of a nationally representative sample of older Americans, to examine education differences in sense of control (e.g., mastery and perceived constraints) and hopelessness. Our sample included 8,495 adults aged 52 and older who were interviewed in 2006/2008 and 2010/2012. We assessed separate models for change in sense of control and hopelessness, accounting for recent changes in social circumstances and health status. Results Low mastery, perceived constraints, and hopelessness were highest among individuals with less than a high school education. Over a 4-year period, this group experienced the greatest declines in psychosocial functioning, as indicated by greater increases in low mastery, perceived constraints, and hopelessness. Education differences existed net of recent negative experiences, specifically the loss of intimate social relationships and social support and increases in disease and disability. Discussion These findings highlight the importance of education for sense of control and hopelessness in older adulthood and demonstrate the cumulative advantage of higher levels of education for psychosocial functioning.

Suggested Citation

  • Uchechi A Mitchell & Jennifer A Ailshire & Lauren L Brown & Morgan E Levine & Eileen M Crimmins, 2018. "Education and Psychosocial Functioning Among Older Adults: 4-Year Change in Sense of Control and Hopelessness," The Journals of Gerontology: Series B, The Gerontological Society of America, vol. 73(5), pages 849-859.
    • Handle: RePEc:oup:geronb:v:73:y:2018:i:5:p:849-859.
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1093/geronb/gbw031
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Lynch, J. W. & Kaplan, G. A. & Salonen, J. T., 1997. "Why do poor people behave poorly? Variation in adult health behaviours and psychosocial characteristics by stages of the socioeconomic lifecourse," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 44(6), pages 809-819, March.
    2. Fredric D. Wolinsky & Kathleen W. Wyrwich & Ajit N. Babu & Kurt Kroenke & William M. Tierney, 2003. "Age, Aging, and the Sense of Control Among Older Adults: A Longitudinal Reconsideration," The Journals of Gerontology: Series B, The Gerontological Society of America, vol. 58(4), pages 212-220.
    3. Margie E Lachman & Stefan Agrigoroaei, 2010. "Promoting Functional Health in Midlife and Old Age: Long-Term Protective Effects of Control Beliefs, Social Support, and Physical Exercise," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 5(10), pages 1-9, October.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Daniel Nettle, 2010. "Why Are There Social Gradients in Preventative Health Behavior? A Perspective from Behavioral Ecology," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 5(10), pages 1-6, October.
    2. Dalton, Patricio S. & Nhung, Nguyen & Rüschenpöhler, Julius, 2020. "Worries of the poor: The impact of financial burden on the risk attitudes of micro-entrepreneurs," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 79(C).
    3. Aue, Katja & Roosen, Jutta, 2010. "Poverty and health behaviour: Comparing socioeconomic status and a combined poverty indicator as a determinant of health behaviour," 115th Joint EAAE/AAEA Seminar, September 15-17, 2010, Freising-Weihenstephan, Germany 116401, European Association of Agricultural Economists.
    4. Chen, Duan-Rung & Wen, Tzai-Hung, 2010. "Socio-spatial patterns of neighborhood effects on adult obesity in Taiwan: A multi-level model," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 70(6), pages 823-833, March.
    5. Missinne, Sarah & Colman, Elien & Bracke, Piet, 2013. "Spousal influence on mammography screening: A life course perspective," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 98(C), pages 63-70.
    6. Shoham, David A. & Vupputuri, Suma & Kaufman, Jay S. & Kshirsagar, Abhijit V. & Diez Roux, Ana V. & Coresh, Josef & Heiss, Gerardo, 2008. "Kidney disease and the cumulative burden of life course socioeconomic conditions: The Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities (ARIC) Study," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 67(8), pages 1311-1320, October.
    7. McNeill, Lorna Haughton & Kreuter, Matthew W. & Subramanian, S.V., 2006. "Social Environment and Physical activity: A review of concepts and evidence," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 63(4), pages 1011-1022, August.
    8. Vander Ploeg, Kerry A. & Maximova, Katerina & McGavock, Jonathan & Davis, Wendy & Veugelers, Paul, 2014. "Do school-based physical activity interventions increase or reduce inequalities in health?," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 112(C), pages 80-87.
    9. Mathieu Ichou & Matthew Wallace, 2019. "The Healthy Immigrant Effect: The role of educational selectivity in the good health of migrants," Demographic Research, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany, vol. 40(4), pages 61-94.
    10. Tonje Holte Stea & Herolinda Shatri & Siri Håvås Haugland & Annette Løvheim Kleppang, 2022. "Association between Self-Reported Childhood Difficulties and Obesity and Health-Related Behaviors in Adulthood—A Cross-Sectional Study among 28,047 Adults from the General Population," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(3), pages 1-13, January.
    11. Hanna Alastalo & Mikaela B von Bonsdorff & Katri Räikkönen & Anu-Katriina Pesonen & Clive Osmond & David J P Barker & Kati Heinonen & Eero Kajantie & Johan G Eriksson, 2013. "Early Life Stress and Physical and Psychosocial Functioning in Late Adulthood," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 8(7), pages 1-8, July.
    12. Davidson, Rosemary & Kitzinger, Jenny & Hunt, Kate, 2006. "The wealthy get healthy, the poor get poorly? Lay perceptions of health inequalities," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 62(9), pages 2171-2182, May.
    13. Lång, Elisabeth & Nystedt, Paul, 2018. "Blowing up money? The earnings penalty of smoking in the 1970s and the 21st century," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 60(C), pages 39-52.
    14. Roland Rau & Gabriele Doblhammer & Vladimir Canudas-Romo & Zhang Zhen, 2008. "Cause-of-Death Contributions to Educational Inequalities in Mortality in Austria between 1981/1982 and 1991/1992," European Journal of Population, Springer;European Association for Population Studies, vol. 24(3), pages 265-286, September.
    15. Weden, Margaret M & Astone, Nan M & Bishai, David, 2006. "Racial, ethnic, and gender differences in smoking cessation associated with employment and joblessness through young adulthood in the US," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 62(2), pages 303-316, January.
    16. de Kok, Inge M.C.M. & van Lenthe, Frank J. & Avendano, Mauricio & Louwman, Marieke & Coebergh, Jan-Willem W. & Mackenbach, Johan P., 2008. "Childhood social class and cancer incidence: Results of the globe study," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 66(5), pages 1131-1139, March.
    17. Jennifer M. Mellor & Jeffrey Milyo, 2002. "Income Inequality and Health Status in the United States: Evidence from the Current Population Survey," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 37(3), pages 510-539.
    18. Tommy Haugan & Sally Muggleton & Arnhild Myhr, 2021. "Psychological distress in late adolescence: The role of inequalities in family affluence and municipal socioeconomic characteristics in Norway," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 16(7), pages 1-25, July.
    19. Jung, Se-Hwan & Tsakos, Georgios & Sheiham, Aubrey & Ryu, Jae-In & Watt, Richard G., 2010. "Socio-economic status and oral health-related behaviours in Korean adolescents," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 70(11), pages 1780-1788, June.
    20. Romanic Baudu & Dorothée Charlier & Bérangère Legendre, 2020. "Fuel Poverty and Health: a Panel Data Analysis," Working Papers 2020.04, FAERE - French Association of Environmental and Resource Economists.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:oup:geronb:v:73:y:2018:i:5:p:849-859.. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Oxford University Press (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://academic.oup.com/psychsocgerontology .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.