Socioemotional Skills, Education, and Health-Related Outcomes of High-Ability Individuals

Peter Savelyev () and Kegon Tan

No 11213, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: We use the high IQ Terman sample to estimate relationships between education, socioemotional skills, and health-related outcomes that include health behaviors, lifestyles, and health measures across the lifecycle. By both focusing on a high IQ sample and controlling for IQ in regression models, we mitigate ability bias due to cognitive skill. In addition, we control for detailed personality measures to account for socioemotional skills. We model skills using factor analysis to address measurement error and adopt a powerful stepdown procedure to account for multiple hypothesis testing. We find that among high IQ subjects, education is linked to better health-related outcomes, in contrast to previous evidence. Conscientiousness, Openness, Extraversion, and Neuroticism are linked to various health-related outcomes across the lifecycle. Furthermore, we find that accounting for a comprehensive set of skills, measurement error, and multiple hypothesis testing not only provides greater confidence in several established relationships but also generates novel results.

Keywords: health behavior; Big Five personality taxonomy; college education; lifestyle; health (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I12 J24 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 43 pages
Date: 2017-12
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cbe, nep-edu, nep-hea, nep-isf and nep-neu
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

Published - published in: American Journal of Health Economics, 2019, 5 (2), 250–280

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Related works:
Journal Article: Socioemotional Skills, Education, and Health-Related Outcomes of High-Ability Individuals (2019)
Journal Article: Socioemotional Skills, Education, and Health-Related Outcomes of High-Ability Individuals (2019)
Working Paper: Socioemotional Skills, Education, and Health-Related Outcomes of High-Ability Individuals (2017)
Working Paper: Socioemotional Skills, Education, and Health-Related Outcomes of High-Ability Individuals (2015)
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