Contact: Jeff Grabmeier, Research Communications, Ohio State
(614) 292-8457; [email protected]
RESEARCHERS SEEK LINK BETWEEN SENSE OF CONTROL, HEALTH AND AGING
COLUMBUS, Ohio - Two sociologists at Ohio State University have received a four-year, $1 million federal grant to continue their research on how people's sense of control affects their health as they age.
The grant, from the National Institute on Aging, will allow the researchers and their colleagues to re-interview more than 1,300 Americans who participated in the first two waves of the survey in 1995 and 1998.
The grant is led by John Mirowsky and Catherine Ross, both professors of sociology at Ohio State.
Mirowsky said sense of control is the perception that people have of being able to direct the events and outcomes in their lives. It can range from a deep sense of powerlessness and fatalism to a firm sense of mastery and self efficacy.
The sense of control has profound impacts on the quality of life, according to Mirowsky.
"Americans with a firm sense of personal control have lower levels of depression, anxiety, distrust and demoralization. Some research has shown that a low sense of personal control even predicts lower rates of survival in older adults," he said.
"Our research aims to find out what affects people's sense of control and what we can do to improve it."
From the first two waves of interviews, Mirowsky and Ross have already learned a great deal - and published several scholarly articles and book chapters - about how sense of control changes over the lifespan. While young adults generally have relatively high levels of perceived control, the levels decline more and more rapidly in successively older adults, particularly from age 55 and up. In general, men and people with higher levels of education have lesser declines during aging. But why are there declines linked to age?
One theory has been that older people feel less sense of control because they generally have poorer economic conditions, Mirowsky said. But research thus far by Mirowsky and Ross suggests that older adults actually deal with their economic restrictions quite well. Another theory has been that older adults feel less control simply because they know they have fewer years left to accomplish their goals. But again, Mirowsky said their early research has not borne this out.
However, results so far suggest a rising level of physical impairment is a key cause of declining sense of control in older adults.
"It's not just having chronic diseases, or even a loss of energy," Mirowsky said. "It is things like not being able to carry a bag of groceries, or not being able to get up and down stairs. These are the everyday problems that can destroy people's sense of control over their own lives."
With the new $1 million grant, Mirowsky and Ross will be able to explore this and other issues further. They will continue to analyze the first two waves of interviews, and also begin a third wave of interviews this winter.
The first two waves of interviews were also funded by the National Institute of Aging with a $604,000 grant. The first wave of interviews in 1995 involved about 2,500 adults. In the second wave in 1998, the researchers were able to re-interview about 1,400 of the original participants. In this third wave, the researchers hope to not only re-interview as many people as possible from the second wave, but also relocate people who dropped out after the first wave.
Mirowsky said many practical benefits could come from this research.
"Some studies have suggested that people can actually reverse many of the old-age impairments that contribute to a declining sense of control. "We're trying to find what makes the difference in whether people deal effectively with those impairments and don't let them take control of their lives," he said.
"We believe some of our findings may suggest things people can do in their own lives to make personal outcomes better, and some my suggest things policy makers can do to improve the health of Americans."
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