Occupational attainment as a function of abilities and interests: a longitudinal analysis using project TALENT data

Ability, interest, gender, and family socioeconomic status of 13,248 tenth-grade participants in Project TALENT were studied as they relate to occupational attainment by using discriminant analysis. Individuals were classified into 12 broad categories reported 11 years after graduation. Accuracy analyses indicated correct classifications significantly above chance for all except the Technical and Sales categories. Within-category classification percentages were higher for all groups except Construction. Five canonical discriminant functions that jointly accounted for 96.8% of the between-groups variance were interpreted. The first 2 accounted for 81.9% of the variance. Function 1 was a general ability function; Function 2 differentiated the categories on the basis of mathematics ability and gender. Functions 3 through 5 accounted for 14.9% of the between-groups variance. Some implications of these findings are discussed.     

Socioeconomic status in childhood and adulthood: associations with dispositional optimism and pessimism over a 21-year follow-up

We examined whether dispositional optimism and pessimism (overall LOT-R and optimism and pessimism component scores) of 694 adults aged 24 and 27 were associated with socioeconomic status (SES) measured concurrently and in childhood at ages 3 and 6. SES measures included education, occupational status and unemployment, and income. Concurrent adulthood SES was associated with the overall LOT-R and optimism and the pessimism component scores. Childhood family SES predicted overall LOT-R and pessimism component scores, even after controlling statistically for the adulthood SES. Social mobility between SES of family of origin and current SES also influenced the scores. The current findings suggest that the foundation of dispositional optimism and pessimism is related to early SES of the family.     

Personality correlates of logical and sociomoral judgment

This study examined the relation of the California Psychological Inventory (CPI) to stages of logical and sociomoral judgment. Logical judgment was measured using adaptations of the pendulum and correlations tasks of Inhelder and Piaget; moral judgment was scored using the standard Kohlberg interview. In a sample of 143 adults, logical and sociomoral judgment were correlated .30 to .50 with most of the Class I (Factor 2) CPI scales, those capturing social poise and interpersonal adequacy, and Class III (Factor 3) CPI scales, those capturing achievement potential and intellectual efficiency. The findings offer support for a cognitive interpretation of competence and ego development.     

Socioeconomic status modifies heritability of IQ in young children

Scores on the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children were analyzed in a sample of 7-year-old twins from the National Collaborative Perinatal Project. A substantial proportion of the twins were raised in families living near or below the poverty level. Biometric analyses were conducted using models allowing for components attributable to the additive effects of genotype, shared environment, and nonshared environment to interact with socioeconomic status (SES) measured as a continuous variable. Results demonstrate that the proportions of IQ variance attributable to genes and environment vary nonlinearly with SES. The models suggest that in impoverished families, 60% of the variance in IQ is accounted for by the shared environment, and the contribution of genes is close to zero; in affluent families, the result is almost exactly the reverse.     

Ego development, authoritarianism, and social status: an investigation of the incremental validity of Loevinger's sentence completion test (short form)

This study presents two sets of analyses designed to evaluate the relation between a 12-item form of the Washington University Sentence Completion Test of ego development (Short Form; SCT-S) and socioeconomic status (SES). The subjects were a large national random sample of adolescent and young adult men and women who were stratified into three artificial age cohorts. The first set of hierarchical multiple regression analyses indicated that SES accounted for 8% to 13% of the variance in SCT-S scores. Incremental validity of the SCT-S in predicting social attitudes, beyond that predicted by SES, was generally supported for authoritarian aggression and partially supported in predicting masculine sex role expectations. Findings suggest that research on ego development with subjects over age 18 might use level of education as a rough index of SES. For younger subjects, parental factors and education are both important. This study also provides revised age-specific national norms for the SCT-S.     

Accounting for the shared environment in cognitive abilities and academic achievement with measured socioecological contexts

Behavioral and molecular genetic research has established that child cognitive ability and academic performance are substantially heritable, but genetic variation does not account for all of the stratification of cognitive and academic outcomes across families. Which specific contexts and experiences contribute to these shared environmental influences on cognitive ability and academic achievement? Using an ethnically and socioeconomically diverse sample of N = 1728 twins ages 7–20 from the Texas Twin Project, we identified specific measured family, school, and neighborhood socioecological contexts that statistically accounted for latent shared environmental variance in cognitive abilities and academic skills. Composite measures of parent socioeconomic status (SES), school demographic composition, and neighborhood SES accounted for moderate proportions of variation in IQ and achievement. Total variance explained by the multilevel contexts ranged from 15% to 22%. The influence of family SES on IQ and achievement overlapped substantially with the influence of school and neighborhood predictors. Together with race, the measured socioecological contexts explained 100% of shared environmental influences on IQ and approximately 79% of shared environmental influences on both verbal comprehension and reading ability. In contrast, nontrivial proportions of shared environmental variation in math performance were left unexplained. We highlight the potential utility of constructing “polyenvironmental risk scores” in an effort to better predict developmental outcomes and to quantify children's and adolescents’ interrelated networks of experiences. A video abstract of this article can be viewed at: https://youtu.be/77E_DctFsr0     

The relative contribution of profile body shape and weight to judgements of women's physical attractiveness in Britain and Malaysia

Ninety-six Malaysian and British men rated for physical attractiveness a set of photographs of real women in profile, with known body mass index (BMI) and waist-to-hip ratio (WHR). Results showed that BMI accounted for the greater amount of variance in all settings. There were also significant differences in preferences for body weight, with low resource, low socioeconomic status (SES) raters preferring a significantly heavier partner than high resource, high SES raters. The disparity with previous findings using line drawings of women in profile was discussed in terms of the weaknesses of line-drawn stimuli.     

Disentangling the Relations Between Different Components of Family Socioeconomic Status and Chinese Preschoolers’ School Readiness

Family socioeconomic status (SES) has been frequently linked to children’s early development. Treating SES as an aggregated variable has many issues, as different components of SES may relate to child outcomes through divergent mechanisms. The purpose of the study was to examine whether parents’ engagement in home learning activities and children’s participation in extracurricular activities (EAs) would function as pathways through which individual SES components related to children’s school readiness. A total of 588 families with preschool‐aged children were recruited from Guangdong province in China. Children’s receptive vocabulary, Chinese reading, and early math skills were individually assessed at three time points, and children’s social skills were rated by parents. Parents reported their engagement in home learning activities with children and their children’s participation in EAs. The results showed that all three components of family SES were related to multiple aspects of children’s school readiness, but through different pathways. Parental income was related to children’s school readiness through EA participation only; parental education and occupational status were associated with school readiness via both parental engagement and child EA participation. The findings suggest that considering SES components separately will produce a more nuanced understanding of the divergent pathways through which family SES may relate to children’s school readiness. Chinese government may provide parent education programs focused on cognitive stimulation for low‐SES families to promote children’s school readiness. Furthermore, the government needs to ensure children’s equal access to EAs to prevent increasing the developmental gap among children from discrepant socioeconomic backgrounds.     

Relations Between Parenting Behavior and SES in a Clinical Sample: Validity of SES Measures

Two common methods of measuring socioeconomic status (SES) were examined in relation to observed parenting behaviors in a clinical sample of 89 mothers of 3- to 6-year-olds referred for treatment of oppositional defiant disorder. Families were 74% Caucasian, 9% African American, 5% Hispanic, 1% Asian, and 11% Biracial. Most children were male (75%). Parenting behaviors were measured with the Dyadic Parent–Child Interaction Coding System (DPICS) categories of prosocial talk and negative talk. Analyses were conducted with SES measured in two ways: (a) the Hollingshead Four-Factor Index of Social Status (HI) was correlated with parenting behaviors; and (b) family income, parent education (5 categories), and parent occupation (5 categories) were used to predict parent behavior. SES was significantly positively related to maternal prosocial talk. When SES was operationalized as income, occupation, and education, the model predicted three times more variance in maternal prosocial talk than the HI alone. SES was not related to maternal negative talk by either measure of SES.     

Parental socioeconomic status and child intellectual functioning in a Norwegian sample

Socioeconomic status (SES) in childhood has been linked to cognitive function and future academic and occupational success in studies from several countries. However, previous Nordic studies have shown inconsistent results regarding the strength of this link. We therefore investigated the association between SES and cognitive functioning in a sample of 255 Norwegian children, including 151 typically developing children and 104 children with a psychiatric diagnosis. The third edition of the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children (WISC‐III) to assess cognitive function was used. SES was defined from maternal and paternal education and family income of typically developing children and of a subsample of children with a psychiatric diagnosis. Multiple adjusted regression analyses were used to investigate the relation between SES and cognitive functioning. The analyses showed that SES explained a significant part of the variance of the full‐scale WISC‐III score and two WISC‐III indices (Verbal Comprehension and Freedom from Distractibility). Overall, the strength of the relations was weaker than expected from reports from other non‐Nordic countries. Parental education was the only significant individual predictor, suggesting that income was of minor importance as a predictor of cognitive functioning. Further studies should investigate how diverse political and socioeconomic contexts influence the relation between SES and cognitive functioning.     

Mental Disorders and Socioeconomic Status: Impact on Population Risk of Attempted Suicide in Australia

The population attributable risk (PAR) of mental disorders compared to indicators of socioeconomic status (SES) for attempted suicide was estimated for Australia. For mental disorders, the highest PAR% for attempted suicide was for anxiety disorders (males 28%; females 36%). For SES, the highest PAR% for attempted suicide in males was for occupation (males 31%; females 16%) and education level (males 19%; females 8%), following adjustment for age and mental disorders. The study results suggest that one third of suicide attempts in both males and females are attributable to anxiety disorders, the same proportion attributable to low educational or occupational status.     

Emotional Health and the Big Five Personality Factors at the American State Level

Relations between the emotional health domain of the Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index and the Big Five personality factors were determined at the American state level. State emotional health scores were based on the aggregated results of 353,039 phone interviews conducted throughout 2008 with a representative sample of US adults (Gallup 2009a). State z scores (Rentfrow et al. in Perspectives on Psychological Science, 3, 339–386, 2008) on neuroticism, extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, and openness were based on 619,397 nationally representative respondents to an internet survey between 1999 and 2005. State socioeconomic status (SES), urban percent, and white percent based on 2000 and 2005 data served as demographic controls. Alaska and Hawaii were excluded. When the controls entered a hierarchical multiple regression equation as a block and were followed by the Big Five selected stepwise, the controls accounted for 27.5% of the emotional health variance and neuroticism accounted for another 35.3%. With stepwise selection of controls and then Big Five variables, SES entered first (24.1%) and neuroticism entered second (32.4%). With stepwise selection from the combined control and Big Five pool, neuroticism entered first (47.5%), SES entered second (9.1%), and urban percent entered third (4.9%). Clearly, neuroticism and SES are the key contributors to emotional health variance and neuroticism makes the largest contribution. States with higher proportions of neurotic individuals and lower SES tended to have populations with poorer emotional health. Theoretical foundations for the link between neuroticism and emotional health at the state level and implications for changes in state emotional health are discussed.     

The development of generosity and moral cognition across five cultures

Morality is an evolved aspect of human nature, yet is heavily influenced by cultural environment. This developmental study adopted an integrative approach by combining measures of socioeconomic status (SES), executive function, affective sharing, empathic concern, theory of mind, and moral judgment in predicting sharing behavior in children (N = 999) from the age of 5 to 12 in five large‐scale societies: Canada, China, Turkey, South Africa, and the USA. Results demonstrate that age, gender, SES, culture, and social cognitive mechanisms explain over 20% of the variance worldwide in children's resource allocation. These findings are discussed in reference to standard cultural comparisons (individualist/collectivist), as well as the degree of market integration, and highlight continuities and discontinuities in children's generosity across urban contexts.     

Career aspirations of youth: Untangling race/ethnicity, SES, and gender

This study examined the influence of gender, socioeconomic status, and race/ethnicity on the career aspirations of over 22,000 8th and 10th grade youth. The top five occupations identified by youth as aspirations included artist, lawyer, musician, FBI agent, and actor/actress. Top occupations were also reported for each gender × socioeconomic status × race/ethnicity group. Aspirations were coded by social prestige level, minimum education requirements, and median salary. Results revealed significant main effects for socioeconomic status and race/ethnicity as well as significant interaction effects. Further, significant gender main effects and a significant gender × ethnicity interaction were found for occupational prestige and educational requirements.     

家庭社会经济地位与青少年未来规划的关系:外向性的调节作用及其性别差异

以山东省济南市、莱州市的935名初二和高一学生为被试, 进行为期一年半的追踪研究, 考察了家庭社会经济地位与青少年的教育规划和职业规划之间的关系, 检验了外向性在其中的调节作用及其性别差异。结果表明:(1)家庭社会经济地位能够显著正向地预测青少年T1和T2时的教育规划以及T1时的职业规划;(2)外向性水平越高, 青少年教育规划和职业规划水平越高, 但是这种预测作用不存在长期性;(3)外向性能够调节家庭社会经济地位与青少年教育规划之间关系, 且这种调节作用存在显著的性别差异;但在家庭社会经济地位与青少年职业规划之间不存调节作用。这表明, 外向性不仅能够直接保护青少年的未来规划, 而且能够抵抗低家庭社会经济地位对个体未来规划的不良影响, 但是这种压力抵抗效应在不同性别、不同未来规划的领域之中存在差异。     

家庭社会经济地位与学习投入的关系：学业自我 效能的中介作用

采用家庭社会经济地位、学业自我效能与学习投入量表,调查了953名初中生,运用结构方程模型探讨了家庭社会经济地位、学业自我效能与学习投入之间的关系。在控制学生性别、年级,以及先前学习成绩的影响后,结果发现:(1)家庭社会经济地位越高,学生对学习的投入就越多;(2)学业自我效能在家庭社会经济地位与学习投入之间起完全中介作用;(3)在家庭社会经济地位的组成成分与学习投入的关系中,家庭收入可以显著预测学习投入,而父母亲职业、父母亲教育水平对学习投入均无直接预测作用,它们是通过家庭收入的中介作用,再经过学业自我效能而影响学习投入。     

Conservatism,Openness, and Creativity: Patents Granted to Residents of American States

This study was conducted to determine the relation of creative production to conservatism and openness to experience with American states as the units of analysis. Patents per state population from 2001 to 2005 served as the criterion. Conservatism was gauged by a composite based on (a) state-aggregated conservative self-placement among over 141,000 respondents to 122 national telephone surveys between 1976 and 1988 and (b) state percentage voting for Bush in 2004. State openness scores were based on state-aggregated survey responses of over 600,000 residents to a common Big Five personality questionnaire. For 46 states (excluding Alaska, Hawaii, Nevada, and Idaho because of lack of suitable data), patents per state population was negatively related to conservatism (r = ? .65) and positively related to openness (r = .50). These associations persisted when state socioeconomic status (SES), estimates of IQ, and degree of urbanization were statistically considered. Multiple regression analysis showed that conservatism and openness together accounted for 46.5% of the criterion variance without controls and 22.7% with SES controlled. Variance in state creative production accounted for by conservatism and openness indicated that the 2 predictors had both overlapping and separate components but that conservatism was the predominant of the 2 dispositional variables.     

A comparison of personality characteristics, family relationships, and drug-taking behavior in low and high socioeconomic status adolescents who are drug abusers

Low socioeconomic status (SES) and high SES adolescents who met the DSM-III criteria for drug abuse were compared with respect to personality characteristics, family relationships, and drug-taking behavior. SES was determined by parents' income, education, and occupation. The two groups did not differ significantly with respect to self-esteem, quality of family relationships, impulse control, moral development, and drug-taking behavior. However, high SES adolescents were more depressed (p less than .009) and more anxious (p less than .02) than low SES adolescents, and these findings lent support to the argument that low and high SES drug abusers differ in personality and therefore require different kinds of treatment interventions.     

Socioeconomic Status and Psychopathic Traits in a Community Sample of Youth

The current study aims to address socioeconomic status (SES) as a moderating variable between psychopathic traits and conduct problems in a sample of 2432 Dutch adolescents (M_age?=?14.50 years, SD?=?1.67, 56% male). Both family and neighborhood SES were measured, with income as a proxy for the level of SES. There were small but significant positive correlations between the behavioral and interpersonal dimensions of psychopathy and family SES, a small but significant negative correlation between the affective dimension and neighborhood SES, and a small and significant positive correlation between neighborhood SES and the behavioral dimension of psychopathy. Results further showed that the relations between youth psychopathic traits were moderated by neither family SES nor neighborhood SES. The results suggest that the relations between psychopathic traits and conduct problems are equally strong for lower and higher SES youth. Taken together, these findings warrant the conclusions that SES does not play a role as a moderator in the relation between psychopathy and conduct problems.     

家庭社会经济地位与父母教养方式对儿童青少年公正世界信念的影响

以全国24013名10~15岁儿童青少年为对象,探讨家庭社会经济地位与父母教养方式对公正世界信念的影响。结果发现：（1）家庭社会经济地位能够正向预测一般公正世界信念与个人公正世界信念;（2）权威型教养方式能够正向预测一般公正世界信念与个人公正世界信念,独裁型与纵容型教养方式能够负向预测一般公正世界信念与个人公正世界信念;（3）家庭社会经济地位与父母教养方式的交互作用对公正世界信念的影响显著,其中,权威型教养方式对高家庭社会经济地位比对低家庭社会经济地位儿童青少年公正世界信念的促进作用更大,独裁型与纵容型教养方式对低家庭社会经济地位比对高家庭社会经济地位儿童青少年公正世界信念的削弱作用更大。