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on Neuroeconomics |
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Issue of 2018‒02‒05
three papers chosen by |
| By: | Swantje Mueller; Jenny Wagner; Gert G. Wagner; Nilam Ram; Denis Gerstorf |
| Abstract: | Personality is a powerful predictor of central life outcomes, including subjective well-being. Yet, we still know little about how personality manifests in the very last years of life when well-being typically falls rapidly. Here, we investigate whether the Big Five personality traits buffer (or magnify) terminal decline in well-being beyond and in interaction with functioning in key physical and social domains. We applied growth models to up to 10-year longitudinal data from 629 now deceased participants in the nation-wide German Socio-Economic Panel Study (SOEP; age at death: M = 76 years; SD = 11). Lower neuroticism and higher conscientiousness were each uniquely associated with higher late-life well-being one year prior to death. At the same time, participants low in neuroticism experienced steeper terminal well-being declines. Similarly, individuals high in agreeableness and women high in extraversion reported higher well-being far away from death, but experienced more severe terminal decline, such that personality-related differences in well-being were not discernible anymore at one year prior to death. Interaction effects further revealed that individuals suffering from disability benefit less from higher levels of conscientiousness, while openness to experience appeared particularly beneficial for the less educated. We conclude that in the context of often severe late-life health challenges that accompany the last years of life, adaptive personality-related differences continue to be evident and sizeable for some traits, but appear to diminish and even reverse in direction for other traits. We discuss possible underlying mechanisms and practical implications. |
| Keywords: | terminal decline, well-being, personality, late life, mortality |
| Date: | 2017 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:diw:diwsop:diw_sp944&r=neu |
| By: | Komodromou, Maria Elena |
| Abstract: | This paper examines the role of postpartum depression (PPD) on the emotional and cognitive development of 11-year olds, a key stage of transition in child development before entering adolescence. The present study uses data from the MCS, a longitudinal cohort study with a large and representative sample of the UK population. The results show that PPD impacts on child emotional difficulties when these are reported by the mother or the teacher; child-reported measures of emotional problems do not show any correlation with PPD Cognitive ability tests show no association between PPD and children’s cognitive performance at age 11. The results of the paper have enhanced our insight regarding a significant period of transition which has not previously been the focus of research and demonstrate the impact PPD has on children’s emotional development. |
| Date: | 2018–01–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ese:iserwp:2018-02&r=neu |
| By: | Savelyev, Peter A. (College of William and Mary); Tan, Kegon T.K. (University of Rochester) |
| Abstract: | We use the high IQ Terman sample to estimate relationships between education, socioemotional skills, and health-related outcomes that include health behaviors, lifestyles, and health measures across the lifecycle. By both focusing on a high IQ sample and controlling for IQ in regression models, we mitigate ability bias due to cognitive skill. In addition, we control for detailed personality measures to account for socioemotional skills. We model skills using factor analysis to address measurement error and adopt a powerful stepdown procedure to account for multiple hypothesis testing. We find that among high IQ subjects, education is linked to better health-related outcomes, in contrast to previous evidence. Conscientiousness, Openness, Extraversion, and Neuroticism are linked to various health-related outcomes across the lifecycle. Furthermore, we find that accounting for a comprehensive set of skills, measurement error, and multiple hypothesis testing not only provides greater confidence in several established relationships but also generates novel results. |
| Keywords: | college education, Big Five personality taxonomy, health behavior, lifestyle, health |
| JEL: | I12 J24 |
| Date: | 2017–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp11213&r=neu |