ArticleProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America2021
Childhood self-control forecasts the pace of midlife aging and preparedness for old age.
Article in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 34 papers.
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Who cites it
34 citing papers in PubMed, 83 citations in OpenAlex.
- Intervention effects on self-control decrease speed of biological aging mediated by changes in substance use: A longitudinal study of African American youth.Family process · 2022Trial
- Age differences in what-if thinking from midlife onwards: Prefrontal contribution and implications for emotional health in late life.GeroScience · 2026Article
- Social mobility and parenting: Testing associations in a prospective longitudinal cohort study.Child development · 2026Article
- Self-control during childhood and mental health at age 15-16: a longitudinal population-based study.European child & adolescent psychiatry · 2026Article
- Sport motivation is associated with lower aggression via emotional intelligence and self-control: a serial mediation study in undergraduates.Frontiers in psychology · 2026Article
- Measurement of executive functioning in pre-school aged children in India: a scoping review.Current psychology (New Brunswick, N.J.) · 2026Article
- Associations between prenatal exposure to a mixture of lead, mercury and polychlorinated biphenyls and executive function in Inuit adolescents.Environmental research · 2025Article
- The social context of educational effort - implications for psychological and physiological health in adolescence.Psychoneuroendocrinology · 2025Article
- Associations between Parent and Adolescent General and Domain-Specific Self Control.Social development (Oxford, England) · 2025Article
- Time spent alone and loneliness in Mexican-origin youth: The role of social relationships and personality.Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences · 2025Article
- Characterizing midlife-onset alcohol dependence: Implications for etiology, prevention, and healthy aging.Clinical psychological science : a journal of the Association for Psychological Science · 2025Article
- The effort hypothesis at the heart of the virtuous circle.EXCLI journal · 2025Review
- Research on the Polish short version of the Self-Regulation Scale: a study across adolescents and adults with three independent samples.Current issues in personality psychology · 2025Article
- Dynamic Field Theory of Executive Function: Identifying Early Neurocognitive Markers.Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development · 2024Article
- Running away from the marshmallow: the relevance of behaviour settings for a situated science of self-control.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2024Article
- Midlife diseases of despair and cardiometabolic risk: testing shared origins in adolescent psychopathology.Psychological medicine · 2024Article
- Individual longitudinal changes in DNA-methylome identify signatures of early-life adversity and correlate with later outcome.Neurobiology of stress · 2024Article
- Influencing Factors of Healthy Aging Risk Assessed Using Biomarkers: A Life Course Perspective.China CDC weekly · 2024Article
- Self-control is associated with health-relevant disparities in buccal DNA-methylation measures of biological aging in older adults.Clinical epigenetics · 2024Article
- Relationship Between Growth Mindset and Self-Control Amongst Chinese Primary School Students: A Longitudinal Study.Psychology research and behavior management · 2024Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
23 authors at 7 institutions in 6 countries.
Funding
Abstract
The ability to control one's own emotions, thoughts, and behaviors in early life predicts a range of positive outcomes in later life, including longevity. Does it also predict how well people age? We studied the association between self-control and midlife aging in a population-representative cohort of children followed from birth to age 45 y, the Dunedin Study. We measured children's self-control across their first decade of life using a multi-occasion/multi-informant strategy. We measured their pace of aging and aging preparedness in midlife using measures derived from biological and physiological assessments, structural brain-imaging scans, observer ratings, self-reports, informant reports, and administrative records. As adults, children with better self-control aged more slowly in their bodies and showed fewer signs of aging in their brains. By midlife, these children were also better equipped to manage a range of later-life health, financial, and social demands. Associations with children's self-control could be separated from their social class origins and intelligence, indicating that self-control might be an active ingredient in healthy aging. Children also shifted naturally in their level of self-control across adult life, suggesting the possibility that self-control may be a malleable target for intervention. Furthermore, individuals' self-control in adulthood was associated with their aging outcomes after accounting for their self-control in childhood, indicating that midlife might offer another window of opportunity to promote healthy aging.
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