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The Role of Psychological Characteristics in the Relation Between Socioeconomic Status and Perceived Health 1
Author(s) -
Cohen Sheldon,
Kaplan George A.,
Salonen Jukka T.
Publication year - 1999
Publication title -
journal of applied social psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.822
H-Index - 111
eISSN - 1559-1816
pISSN - 0021-9029
DOI - 10.1111/j.1559-1816.1999.tb01396.x
Subject(s) - socioeconomic status , psychology , anger , depression (economics) , social psychology , clinical psychology , environmental health , medicine , population , economics , macroeconomics
Separate analyses of United States and Finnish samples demonstrate a graded (almost linear) relation between socioeconomic status (SES) and risk of poor perceived health. In both studies, positive psychological factors (greater social support; less anger, depression, and perceived stress) and beneficial health practices (nonsmoking; drinking and exercising moderately) were associated with both higher levels of SES and better self‐reported health. Psychological and health practice variables were both able to account for some of the SES and poor health gradient. However, contrary to expectations, these factors did not play a more important role in explaining decreased risk at the middle and highest levels of SES, and instead may be most important at lowest levels.