Social Psychological Correlates Of Occupational Conditio

National Institute Of Mental Health

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Abstract

This project investigated how socio-environmental conditions affect the psychological functioning of the elderly. It tested hypotheses about how, as one grows older, social-structurally determined environmental conditions such as complexity affect cognitive functioning, autonomous self-directed orientations and one's feelings about oneself and one's circumstances, as well as mental and physical health. The data came from a three wave longitudinal survey based on a representative sample of American working men and their wives. The survey waves took place in 1964, 1974 and 1994. Using data based on the 1994 third wave interviews and structural equation modeling (SEM), we tested whether earlier findings that self-directed occupational conditions increased intellectual functioning and self-directed orientations hold when the respondents were twenty years older. The results confirmed that even late in life self-directedness of work continued to affect intellectual functioning and self-directedness of orientation. These psychological characteristics, in turn, affected social-structural position in ways that increase disparities between advantaged and disadvantaged. From a sociological perspective, the findings suggest that the occupational self-directedness of a society's workers may affect its social norms, values and modes of production. This year we went beyond examining the effects of paid work by investigating the relationship between the complexity of household work and both intellectual flexibility and self-esteem. Longitudinal reciprocal-effects SEM analyses revealed that for both men and women, participating in more complex household work leads to increased intellectual flexibility. For women, complex household work also increased self-confidence and decreased self-deprecation. For men, complex household work is associated with decreased self-confidence. The results are consistent with findings on the effects of other types of environmental complexity on intellectual functioning, and also with current theories of self-esteem. We also examined the relations among socioeconomic status (SES), control beliefs, and two coping styles (problem-focused v. emotion-focused) in the context of financial stress. We hypothesized that individuals from lower SES strata would be less likely to engage in problem-focused coping, because of decreased levels of perceived personal control. Our findings supported this hypothesis: lower SES is associated with greater use of emotion-focused financial coping and lesser use of more effective problem-focused financial coping. Because the likelihood of using problem focused financial coping is significantly lessened when people perceive themselves as having little control- a characteristic of lower SES individuals?those in lower SES positions, not only have fewer financial resources, they are also doubly disadvantaged because they use less effective coping strategies in dealing with the financial stresses they face.