Positive Affectivity, Self-Mastery, and a Sense of Failure as Predictors of Self-Assessed Health

Abstract

The study was part of the Jyväskylä Longitudinal Study of Personality and Social Development. The participants (145 females and 147 males) were mailed a Life Situation Questionnaire at ages 27 and 36. This included a Personal Control Inventory as well as questions about their satisfaction with intimate relationships, leisure time, housing, occupation, work situation, and livelihood as well as about their sense of control over life events. Three groups of variables emerged from their responses: positive affectivity (satisfaction with life, contentment with one's achievements), a sense of failure (low self-worth, accusation of others), and self-mastery (self-confidence, social support, control over life events). A single-item self-assessment of health was elicited at ages 27 and 36, and the 12-item General Health Questionnaire was administered at age 36 to study psychological distress. The results (tested by LISREL 7.2) showed that long-term positive affectivity was directly related to good self-assessed health. Low positive affectivity explained psychological distress, which in turn explained a sense of failure; the latter was related to both low self-mastery and low positive affectivity. This circle of distress, or negative affectivity, was indirectly related to poor self-assessed health via low positive affectivity.