Educational disparities in 20-year trajectories of psychological well-being in a national sample
Cutler, D. M. & Lleras-Muney, A. Education and health: Evaluating theories and evidence. National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series 12352 (2006).
Hansen, E. R. & Tyner, A. Educational attainment and social norms of voting. Polit. Behav. 43, 711–735 (2021).
Google Scholar
Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion. Healthy People 2030 Framework. https://health.gov/healthypeople.
Raghupathi, V. & Raghupathi, W. The influence of education on health: An empirical assessment of OECD countries for the period 1995–2015. Arch. Public Health 78, 20 (2020).
Google Scholar
Meara, E., Richards, S. & Cutler, D. The gap gets bigger: Changes in mortality and life expectancy by education, 1981–2000. Health Aff. (Millwood) 27, 350–360 (2008).
Google Scholar
Montez, J. K. & Bisesti, E. M. Widening Educational disparities in health and longevity. Ann. Rev. Sociol. 50, 547–564 (2024).
Google Scholar
Pfeffer, F. T. Growing wealth gaps in education. Demography 55, 1033–1068 (2018).
Google Scholar
Zajacova, A. & Lawrence, E. M. The relationship between education and health: Reducing disparities through a contextual approach. Annu. Rev. Public Health 39, 273–289 (2018).
Google Scholar
Hummer, R. A. & Hernandez, E. M. The effect of educational attainment on adult mortality in the United States. Popul. Bull. 68, 1–16 (2013).
Google Scholar
Zajacova, A. & Montez, J. K. Physical functioning trends among US women and men age 45–64 by education level. Biodemography Soc. Biol. 63, 21–30 (2017).
Google Scholar
Dowd, J. J. Ever since Durkheim: The socialization of human development. Human Dev. 33, 138–159 (1990).
Google Scholar
Ryff, C. D. Happiness is everything, or is it? Explorations on the meaning of psychological well-being. J. Personal. Soc. Psychol. 57, 1069–1081 (1989).
Google Scholar
Ryff, C. D. Well-being with soul: Science in pursuit of human potential. Perspect. Psychol. Sci. 13, 242–248 (2018).
Google Scholar
Neugarten, B. L. Personality change in late life: A developmental perspective. in The psychology of adult development and aging 311–335 (American Psychological Association, Washington, DC, US, 1973). https://doi.org/10.1037/10044-012.
Erikson, E. H. Identity and the life cycle: Selected papers. Psychol. Issues 1, 1–171 (1994).
Google Scholar
Bühler, C. The curve of life as studied in biographies. J. Appl. Psychol. 19, 405–409 (1935).
Google Scholar
Ryff, C. D. & Keyes, C. L. M. The structure of psychological well-being revisited. J. Personal. Soc. Psychol. 69, 719–727 (1995).
Google Scholar
Huta, V. & Waterman, A. S. Eudaimonia and its distinction from hedonia: Developing a classification and terminology for understanding conceptual and operational definitions. J. Happiness Stud. 15, 1425–1456 (2014).
Google Scholar
Ryff, C. D. Decades of scientific research on human happiness: Questions, findings, and urgent future directions. in The Routledge History of Happiness 408–428 (Routledge, 2024).
Ryff, C. D. The privilege of well-being in an increasingly unequal society. Curr. Dir. Psychol. Sci. 33, 300–307 (2024).
Google Scholar
Cohen, R., Bavishi, C. & Rozanski, A. Purpose in life and its relationship to all-cause mortality and cardiovascular events: A meta-analysis. Psychosom. Med. 78, 122–133 (2016).
Google Scholar
Boylan, J. M., Tompkins, J. L. & Krueger, P. M. Psychological well-being, education, and mortality. Health Psychol. 41, 225–234 (2022).
Google Scholar
Ryff, C. D., Boylan, J. M. & Kirsch, J. A. Eudaimonic and hedonic well-being: An integrative perspective with linkages to sociodemographic factors and health. in Measuring Well-Being: Interdisciplinary Perspectives from the Social Sciences and the Humanities 92–135 (Oxford University Press, 2021). https://doi.org/10.1093/OSO/9780197512531.003.0005.
Steptoe, A. Happiness and health. Ann. Rev. Public Health 40, 339–359 (2019).
Google Scholar
Kubzansky, L. D. et al. Positive psychological well-being and cardiovascular disease: JACC health promotion series. J. Am. Coll. Cardiol. 72, 1382–1396 (2018).
Google Scholar
Ong, A. D., Kim, S., Young, S. & Steptoe, A. Positive affect and sleep: A systematic review. Sleep Med. Rev. 35, 21–32 (2017).
Google Scholar
Bassett, S. M., Schuette, S. A., O’Dwyer, L. C. & Moskowitz, J. T. Positive affect and medication adherence in chronic conditions: A systematic review. Health Psychol. 38, 960 (2019).
Google Scholar
Kim, E. S., Shiba, K., Boehm, J. K. & Kubzansky, L. D. Sense of purpose in life and five health behaviors in older adults. Prev. Med. 139, 106172 (2020).
Google Scholar
Kim, E. S., Strecher, V. J. & Ryff, C. D. Purpose in life and use of preventive health care services. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. 111, 16331–16336 (2014).
Google Scholar
Cole, S. W. et al. Loneliness, eudaimonia, and the human conserved transcriptional response to adversity. Psychoneuroendocrinology 62, 11–17 (2015).
Google Scholar
Fredrickson, B. L. et al. A functional genomic perspective on human well-being. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U. S. A. 110, 13684–13689 (2013).
Google Scholar
Fredrickson, B. L. et al. Psychological well-being and the human conserved transcriptional response to adversity. PloS One 10, e0121839 (2015).
Google Scholar
Baselmans, B. M. L. & Bartels, M. A genetic perspective on the relationship between eudaimonic and hedonic well-being. Sci. Rep. 8, 14610 (2018).
Google Scholar
Heller, A. S. et al. Sustained striatal activity predicts eudaimonic well-being and cortisol output. Psychol. Sci. 24, 2191–2200 (2013).
Google Scholar
Schaefer, S. M. et al. Purpose in life predicts better emotional recovery from negative stimuli. PLoS ONE 8, e80329 (2013).
Google Scholar
Lewis, G. J., Kanai, R., Rees, G. & Bates, T. C. Neural correlates of the ‘good life’: Eudaimonic well-being is associated with insular cortex volume. Soc. Cogn. Affect. Neurosci. 9, 615–618 (2014).
Google Scholar
Nair, A. K. et al. Purpose in life as a resilience factor for brain health: Diffusion MRI findings from the Midlife in the U.S. study. Front. Psychiatry (2024).
Google Scholar
Ross, C. E. & Mirowsky, J. Refining the association between education and health: The effects of quantity, credential, and selectivity. Demography 36, 445–460 (1999).
Google Scholar
Zajacova, A., Hummer, R. A. & Rogers, R. G. Education and health among U.S. working-age adults: A detailed portrait across the full educational attainment spectrum. Biodemogr. Soc. Biol. 58, 40–61 (2012).
Google Scholar
Mirowsky, J. & Ross, C. E. Education, health, and the default American lifestyle. J. Health Soc. Behav. 56, 297–306 (2015).
Google Scholar
Braveman, P. & Egerter, S. The social determinants of health: Coming of age. Ann. Rev. Public Health 32, 381–398 (2011).
Google Scholar
Ferraro, K. F. & Shippee, T. P. Aging and cumulative inequality: How does inequality get under the skin?. Gerontologist 49, 333–343 (2009).
Google Scholar
Tan, J. J. X., Kraus, M. W., Carpenter, N. C. & Adler, N. E. The association between objective and subjective socioeconomic status and subjective well-being: A meta-analytic review. Psychol. Bull. 146, 970–1020 (2020).
Google Scholar
Curhan, K. B. et al. Subjective and objective hierarchies and their relations to psychological well-being: A U.S./Japan comparison. Soc. Psychol. Personal. Sci. 5, 855–864 (2014).
Google Scholar
Ryff, C. D. Eudaimonic well-being and education: Probing the connections. in Well-being and higher education: A strategy for change and the realization of education’s greater purposes. Bringing Theory to Practice (ed. Harward, D.) 37–48 (Washington DC, 2016).
Ryff, C. D. et al. Culture, inequality, and health: Evidence from the MIDUS and MIDJA comparison. Cult. Brain 3, 1–20 (2015).
Google Scholar
Mroczek, D. K. & Kolarz, C. M. The effect of age on positive and negative affect: A developmental perspective on happiness. J. Personal. Soc. Psychol. 75, 1333–1349 (1998).
Google Scholar
Gerstorf, D. et al. Late-life decline in well-being across adulthood in Germany, the United Kingdom, and the United States: Something is seriously wrong at the end of life. Psychol. Aging 25, 477–485 (2010).
Google Scholar
Carstensen, L. L., Isaacowitz, D. M. & Charles, S. T. Taking time seriously: A theory of socioemotional selectivity. Am. Psychol. 54, 165–181 (1999).
Google Scholar
Fingerman, K. L. & Charles, S. T. It takes two to tango: Why older people have the best relationships. Curr. Dir. Psychol. Sci. 19, 172–176 (2010).
Google Scholar
Riley, M. W., Kahn, R. L., Foner, A. & Mack, K. A. Age and Structural Lag: Society’s Failure to Provide Meaningful Opportunities in Work, Family, and Leisure. xiv, 290 (Wiley, 1994).
Springer, K. W., Pudrovska, T. & Hauser, R. M. Does psychological well-being change with age?: Longitudinal tests of age variations and further exploration of the multidimensionality of Ryff’s model of psychological well-being. Soc. Sci. Res. 40, 392–398 (2011).
Google Scholar
Hill, P. L. & Weston, S. J. Evaluating 8-year trajectories for sense of purpose in the health and retirement study. Aging Ment. Health 23, 233–237 (2019).
Google Scholar
Radler, B. T. & Ryff, C. D. Who participates? Accounting for longitudinal retention in the MIDUS national study of health and well-being. J. Aging Health 22, 307–331 (2010).
Google Scholar
Song, J. et al. Who returns? Understanding varieties of longitudinal participation in MIDUS. J. Aging Health 33, 896–907 (2021).
Google Scholar
Radler, B. T., Rigotti, A. & Ryff, C. D. Persistently high psychological well-being predicts better HDL cholesterol and triglyceride levels: Findings from the midlife in the U.S. (MIDUS) longitudinal study. Lipids Health Dis. (2017).
Google Scholar
Ryff, C. D., Radler, B. T. & Friedman, E. M. Persistent psychological well-being predicts improved self-rated health over 9–10 years: Longitudinal evidence from MIDUS. Health Psychol. Open 2, 2055102915601582 (2015).
Google Scholar
Twenge, J. M. & Cooper, A. B. The expanding class divide in happiness in the United States, 1972–2016. Emotion 22, 701–713 (2022).
Google Scholar
Goldman, N., Glei, D. A. & Weinstein, M. Declining mental health among disadvantaged Americans. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U. S. A. 115, 7290–7295 (2018).
Google Scholar
Kirsch, J. A., Love, G. D., Radler, B. T. & Ryff, C. D. Scientific imperatives vis-à-vis growing inequality in America. Am. Psychol. 74, 764–777 (2019).
Google Scholar
Oishi, S. & Kesebir, S. Income inequality explains why economic growth does not always translate to an increase in happiness. Psychol. Sci. 26, 1630–1638 (2015).
Google Scholar
Case, A. & Deaton, A. Rising morbidity and mortality in midlife among white non-Hispanic Americans in the 21st century. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. 112, 15078–15083 (2015).
Google Scholar
Case, A. & Deaton, A. Deaths of Despair and the Future of Capitalism (Princeton University Press, 2020).
Google Scholar
Infurna, F. J., Staben, O. E., Lachman, M. E. & Gerstorf, D. Historical change in midlife health, well-being, and despair: Cross-cultural and socioeconomic comparisons. Am. Psychol. 76, 870–887 (2021).
Google Scholar
Almeida, D. M. et al. Charting adulthood development through (historically changing) daily stress processes. Am. Psychol. 75, 511–524 (2020).
Google Scholar
Bar-Haim, E., Chauvel, L. & Hartung, A. More necessary and less sufficient: An age-period-cohort approach to overeducation from a comparative perspective. High Educ. 78, 479–499 (2019).
Google Scholar
Case, A. & Deaton, A. The great divide: Education, despair, and death. Ann. Rev. Econ. 14, 1–21 (2022).
Google Scholar
Bacaro, V., Miletic, K. & Crocetti, E. A meta-analysis of longitudinal studies on the interplay between sleep, mental health, and positive well-being in adolescents. Int. J. Clin. Health Psychol. 24, 100424 (2024).
Google Scholar
Yemiscigil, A. & Vlaev, I. The bidirectional relationship between sense of purpose in life and physical activity: A longitudinal study. J. Behav. Med. 44, 715–725 (2021).
Google Scholar
Wettstein, M., Schilling, O. K., Reidick, O. & Wahl, H.-W. Four-year stability, change, and multidirectionality of well-being in very-old age. Psychol. Aging 30, 500–516 (2015).
Google Scholar
Twenge, J. M., Campbell, W. K. & Freeman, E. C. Generational differences in young adults’ life goals, concern for others, and civic orientation, 1966–2009. J. Personal. Soc. Psychol. 102, 1045–1062 (2012).
Google Scholar
Fry, R. The Rising Age Gap in Economic Well-Being (Pew Research Center, 2011).
Google Scholar
Twenge, J. M., Cooper, A. B., Joiner, T. E., Duffy, M. E. & Binau, S. G. Age, period, and cohort trends in mood disorder indicators and suicide-related outcomes in a nationally representative dataset, 2005–2017. J. Abnorm. Psychol. 128, 185–199 (2019).
Google Scholar
Kim, E. S., Moskowitz, J. T. & Kubzansky, L. D. Introduction to special issue: Interventions to modify psychological well-being and population health. Affect. Sci. 4, 1–9 (2023).
Google Scholar
Muennig, P. A., Reynolds, M., Fink, D. S., Zafari, Z. & Geronimus, A. T. America’s declining well-being, health, and life expectancy: Not just a White problem. Am. J. Public Health 108, 1626–1631 (2018).
Google Scholar
Boyle, P. A. et al. Effect of purpose in life on the relation between Alzheimer disease pathologic changes on cognitive function in advanced age. Arch. Gen. Psychiatry 69, 499–505 (2012).
Google Scholar
Kim, E. S., Sun, J. K., Park, N. & Peterson, C. Purpose in life and reduced incidence of stroke in older adults: ‘The Health and Retirement Study’. J. Psychosom. Res. 74, 427–432 (2013).
Google Scholar
Kim, E. S., Sun, J. K., Park, N., Kubzansky, L. D. & Peterson, C. Purpose in life and reduced risk of myocardial infarction among older U.S. adults with coronary heart disease: A 2-year follow-up. J. Behav. Med. 36, 124–133 (2013).
Google Scholar
Boylan, J. M. & Ryff, C. D. Psychological well-being and metabolic syndrome: Findings from the Midlife in the United States national sample. Psychosom. Med. 77, 548–558 (2015).
Google Scholar
Friedman, E. M. & Ryff, C. D. Living well with medical comorbidities: A biopsychosocial perspective. J. Gerontol. Ser. B: Psychol. Sci. Soc. Sci. (2012).
Google Scholar
Schiltz, N. K. Prevalence of multimorbidity combinations and their association with medical costs and poor health: A population-based study of U.S. adults. Front. Public Health 10, 953886 (2022).
Google Scholar
Brandmaier, A. M., Ram, N., Wagner, G. G. & Gerstorf, D. Terminal decline in well-being: The role of multi-indicator constellations of physical health and psychosocial correlates. Dev. Psychol. 53, 996–1012 (2017).
Google Scholar
Potter, S. et al. Trajectories of multiple subjective well-being facets across old age: The role of health and personality. Psychol. Aging 35, 894–909 (2020).
Google Scholar
Sumner, J. A., Koenen, K. C. & Kubzansky, L. D. The long arm of mental health: New urgency with the COVID-19 pandemic. Am. J. Health Promot. 35, 311–312 (2021).
Google Scholar
Zheng, H. & Echave, P. Are recent cohorts getting worse? Trends in US adult physiological status, mental health, and health behaviors across a century of birth cohorts. Am. J. Epidemiol. 190, 2242–2255 (2021).
Google Scholar
Kirsch, J. A. & Ryff, C. D. Hardships of the great recession and health: Understanding varieties of vulnerability. Health Psychol. Open 3, 2055102916652390 (2016).
Google Scholar
R Core Team. R: A Language and Environment for Statistical Computing. (2022).
Wickham, H., François, R., Henry, L. & Müller, K. dplyr: A Grammar of Data Manipulation (2022).
Bates, D., Mächler, M., Bolker, B. & Walker, S. Fitting linear mixed-effects models using lme4. J. Stat. Softw. 67, 1–48 (2015).
Google Scholar
Kuznetsova, A., Brockhoff, P. B. & Christensen, R. H. B. lmerTest package: Tests in linear mixed effects models. J. Stat. Softw. 82, 1–26 (2017).
Google Scholar
Wickham, H. ggplot2: Elegant Graphics for Data Analysis (Springer-Verlag, 2016).
Google Scholar
link
