On the relations of sociocognitive childhood characteristics, education, and socioeconomic success in adulthood

Abstract

Sociocognitive characteristics—ranging from self-concepts and interests to goals and self-esteem—have been discussed as key drivers predicting adult socioeconomic success. This study analyzes how childhood sociocognitive characteristics relate to adult socioeconomic success (education, occupational status, and income). Drawing on Eccles et al.’s expectancy value theory, we operationalized sociocognitive characteristics comprehensively via academic self-concept, academic interest, professional goal aspirations and professional goal certainty, and self-esteem. Based on a German sample, we explored the extent to which potential relations were independent of other central childhood factors—namely intelligence and parental socioeconomic background—as well as of adult educational attainment, which simultaneously served as a mediator and outcome. Additionally, we used school track as a moderator variable for these relations. We thus tested the idea that the effects of childhood factors are strongly mediated and moderated by education in highly structured education systems like Germany. Our sample of N = 3906 randomly sampled participants came from a German prospective longitudinal study in which respondents were first assessed at age 12 in 1991 and last surveyed in 2009/10. All characteristics were related to socioeconomic success indicators. However, education played a central role in mediating almost all of the effects of childhood characteristics, as education was the strongest predictor for socioeconomic success, and sociocognitive characteristics—especially self-esteem, professional aspirations, and academic self-concept—predicted education. School tracks moderated these relationships, with sociocognitive characteristics being particularly predictive in the academic track. Furthermore, the effects of sociocognitive characteristics shared substantial variance with intelligence and socioeconomic background. Nevertheless, professional aspirations, academic self-concept, and—in the academic track—academic interests exhibited unique effects, predicting not only education but also further adult socioeconomic success.