Abstract
Whether and how the differentiated social cognition of the elderly affects their self-rated health has not been deeply discussed. Based on social cognition theory and Chinese situation, this study constructs the social cognitive dimension of Chinese elderly including social attitude, class identity and perception of social relations. Using the data from Chinese General Social Survey in 2017, this study screens out 1,728 elderly people aged 60 and over, and discusses the impact mechanism of social cognition on self-rated health of Chinese elderly people aged 60 and over by the construction of structural equation model and mediation effect test method. The results show that social attitude, class identity and perceptions of social relationships have significantly positive effects on the self-rated health levels of elderly individuals. Among them, the path coefficient of social attitude to self-rated health was 0.049, the path coefficient of class identity to self-rated health was 0.171, and the path coefficient of social relationship perception to self-rated health was 0.248; both class identity and perception of social relationship have significant mediating effects on elderly self-rated health through social engagement. This study shows that social cognition rarely studied in existing literature has significant effects on the self-rated health of older adults, providing fruitful insights for enhancing the self-rated health level of elderly individuals.
Highlights
Self-rated health refers to an individual’s perceived health status, which is called perceived health, self-assessed health and so on (Pan and Wu, 2018)
In this study, we hypothesize that older people with a more positive social attitude have a higher degree of social engagement, older people with a lower class identity have a higher degree of social engagement, and elderly individuals who are more satisfied with their perceptions of their social relationships have a higher degree of social engagement
Previous studies have shown that in the special historical period of social transformation, people’s complex social psychology, which is composed of individual social attitudes, class identity and interpersonal perception of social relations, has an important impact on their health (Hans and Christian, 1996; Liu and Gu, 2014)
Summary
Self-rated health refers to an individual’s perceived health status, which is called perceived health, self-assessed health and so on (Pan and Wu, 2018). There are many factors affecting self-rated health, but there is no unified conclusion at present. Differences in the social cognitive levels of elderly individuals may affect their self-rated health (Idler and Cartwright, 2018). There are few references discussing how social cognition influences Chinese elderly Individuals’ self-rated health. In order to further explore whether and how social cognition affects the self-rated health of elderly groups. We used the 2017 China General Social Survey (CGSS) data to analyze the impact of social cognition on the self-rated health of Chinese individuals aged 60 or older by using structural equation modeling. Our findings have implications for improving the self-rated health of elderly individuals, reducing their risk of death, and improving their well-being and quality of life in old age
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