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Self-Control as Mediator and Moderator of the Relationship Between Social Support and Subjective Well-Being Among the Chinese Elderly

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An Erratum to this article was published on 04 March 2015

Abstract

Although numerous studies have demonstrated that social support affects a range of life experiences, only a few have examined the moderators and mediators such as self-esteem. According to self-control theory, self-control represents one’s ability to override or change one’s inner responses, and to interrupt undesired behavioral tendencies and refrain from acting on them. A high level of self-control may help individuals to mediate or moderate negative affect and thus weaken any adverse effects, contributing to their subjective well-being (SWB) in the long run. The current study explored how this interaction may affect the subjective well-being of the Chinese elderly, for whom self-control and social support are especially important life management issues. The study examined whether self-control mediates and moderates the relationship between social support and SWB among the elderly Chinese population. The data were collected from 335 elderly Chinese people (162 females and 173 males) from ten cities in central China, who completed the Chinese Social Support Scale, Trait Self-control Scale, Life Satisfaction Scale and Positive and Negative Affect Scale. The results showed that self-control, social support and SWB were strongly and significantly related. Hierarchical regression analysis showed that self-control partially mediated the influence of social support on SWB. Moreover, self-control moderated the relationship between social support and positive affect, but not life satisfaction and negative affect. These findings imply that self-control is a critical indicator of SWB and can serve as a basis for differentiating between intervention strategies that promote SWB among the elderly by helping them manage positive and negative affect. Future studies should further examine the internal mechanisms by which self-control influences SWB.

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Notes

  1. According to Chinese labor law, women can retire at age 55 and men can retire at age 60 only if they continued to work in the 10 years preceding their application for retirement. Most people “retire” before the official age of retirement under the current law for a number of reasons, including suffering a serious illness, becoming bored with their work, losing their position due to personnel system reform or caring for their grandchildren. Therefore, it may be more accurate to say that the majority of the elderly in China have exited the labor market.

  2. There are two methods for giving weights. In the current study, the first method involved the four items having different weights. (The three items that represented the domain subject’s well-being were given a weight of 1, and the fourth item that represented the global subject’s well-being was given a weight of 3.) The other method involved the four items having the same weights. Clarifying this question would have simplified the complicated relationship between the global and domain subjects’ well-being. A few studies have shown both a close correlation and a substantial difference between global and domain subjects’ well-being, which the results obtained by reanalyzing the EFA data in the current study also support. Moreover, we reanalyzed the data giving all four of the items the same weights. The results demonstrated unchanged parameter significance and only rather weak changes in parameter values at the second and third place after the decimal point. Thus, choosing which weighting method to use appears to be a theoretical rather than methodological or statistical issue.

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Acknowledgments

This research was supported by New Century Talent Supporting Project NCET-10-0370 by China Ministry of Education, Soft Science Major Project 2012ZK1003 in Hunan province, The Natural Science Foundation 13JJ3051 in Hunan province and The Social Science Foundation 12YBA065 in Hunan province. The authors would also like to thank the two anonymous reviewers for their thoughtful and stimulating comments on earlier versions of this manuscript.

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  1. Research Institute of Educational Science, Hunan University, Changsha, Hunan, People’s Republic of China

    Yangjun Tu

  2. School of Business, Hunan University, Changsha, Hunan, Chinese Republic of China

    Zhi Yang

  3. Department of Marketing, Ross School of Business, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, USA

    Yangjun Tu

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Tu, Y., Yang, Z. Self-Control as Mediator and Moderator of the Relationship Between Social Support and Subjective Well-Being Among the Chinese Elderly. Soc Indic Res 126, 813–828 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11205-015-0911-z

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