Journals of Gerontology Series B: Psychological Sciences and Social Sciences, Vol 52, Issue 3 S125-S134, Copyright © 1997 by The Gerontological Society of America
Age, subjective life expectancy, and the sense of control: the horizon hypothesis
J Mirowsky
The Ohio State University, Columbus. mirowsky.1@osu.edu
This article reports a test of the horizon hypothesis, which states that
greater subjective life expectancy increases the sense of control over
one's own life and in part accounts for the negative association between
age and the sense of control. Results of a U.S. survey of 2,029 respondents
aged 18 and older (934 aged 50 and older) support the hypothesis.
Subjective life expectancy has a significant positive association with the
sense of control that does not vanish with adjustment for race, sex,
education, income, widowhood, inability to work because of a disability,
physical impairment, and physical fitness. Adjustment for subjective life
expectancy explains the part of the negative association between age and
the sense of control that remains after adjustment for education and
physical impairment. Adjusting the three factors together explains 93.1
percent of the total association between age and the sense of control, and
renders the remaining association insignificant.
