Children's Sense of Control as a Determinant of Adult Health

• In Event: 499 - Section on Aging and the Life Course Roundtable Session.
  In Refereed Roundtable: Table 02. Psychosocial Influences on Well-Being

Abstract

Previous research has established empirical connections between level of education, the sense of control and adult health, and it is often argued that the sense of control contributes to an interpretation of the relationship between education and health. The present paper argues on the basis of prior theoretical and empirical literature that the sense of control has its origins in early childhood and that past research has possibly misattributed a mediational role to sense of control in adulthood. Using data from the 1970 British Cohort Study, we examine the extent to which the association between health and education is spuriously due to early childhood traits, especially measured intelligence and sense of control. We find that the internal sense of control as assessed in childhood and adolescence has important direct and indirect effects on both education and health in early adulthood, and that a substantial portion of their association is spuriously due to early childhood and adolescent sense of control. The empirical implications of this study are that the sense of control not only is a key concept of explaining the effects of education on health, but also as a risk factor that originates from childhood, influencing both health and education. Our synthesis of the existing studies points out the possibility that a sense of control is a childhood origin of the health-education gradient as well as an explanation for why early life social environments are important to health.  

Authors

• Katsuya Oi, Pennsylvania State University

• Duane F. Alwin, Pennsylvania State University