The role of confidence in attainment of adolescent aspirations on adulthood depression

• In Event: 3129 - Section on Medical Sociology Refereed Roundtables (1 hour)
  In Refereed Roundtable 60min: Table 24. Identity and Well-Being

Abstract

This paper is one portion of a three-pronged analysis to be completed in May examining the link between social class/occupational aspirations and reported depressive symptoms. The subsequently reported part of the analysis specifically looks at the impact of low confidence in one’s likelihood to meet career expectations on rates of depression in adulthood. I utilized 7,667 responses from two waves of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979 – a baseline recording in 1979 and a follow-up wave fifteen years later. I examined the impact of confidence in likelihood of meeting career expectations to reported depressive symptoms according to Center for the Epistemological Study of Depression scores. Within that discussion, I find that there is a relationship between confidence and depression score, whereby lower confidence in ability to meet career expectations is associated with higher CESD depression scores in mid-life. This statistically significant finding is of modest magnitude. The two additional lines of inquiry within this project are examining the impact of low expectations (not low confidence in meeting expectations, but low expectations themselves) on depressive symptoms in mid-life, and meeting or failing to meet expectations on depressive symptoms in mid-life.

Author

• Kristen Tzoc, Boston University