Age variations in personal agency and self-esteem: the context of physical disability.
OBJECTIVE
This study examines how age patterns in health control, self-efficacy, and self-esteem are influenced by age-correlated social status, health, personality, and social integration variables.


METHODS
Ordinary least squares regression documents age patterns in data from a 1985 community sample of 1,549 physically disabled and nondisabled individuals from southwestern Ontario, Canada.


RESULTS
Older respondents report lower health control, self-efficacy, and self-esteem. Less education, more physical impairment, poorer global health, less empathy, and less introspectiveness explain about 43% of age's negative association with health control and more than half of its negative association with self-esteem. In addition, age is associated more negatively with self-efficacy among the disabled. Social status variables conceal the strength of the age-by-disability interaction coefficient, while health accounts for almost an equal amount.


CONCLUSIONS
The findings describe how age-correlated personal and social factors contribute to, or statistically conceal, older adults' sense of health control, self-efficacy, and self-esteem.
Schieman
S
S
University of Maryland, USA. sschieman@socy.umd.edu
Campbell
J E
JE
D000367:Age Factors; D002170:Canada; D006233:Persons with Disabilities; D006304:Health Status; D006801:Humans; D016018:Least-Squares Analysis; D010551:Personality; D012649:Self Concept; D012959:Socioeconomic Factors