Does social desirability influence psychological well-being: perceived physical health and religiosity of Italian elders? A developmental approach

Abstract

Objective: This study was mainly aimed at exploring the relationship between psychological well-being and lifestyle, religion, perceived physical health and social desirability of Italian elders.

Methods: Four hundred and six cognitively healthy 65–99 years old participants were recruited from the Italian isle of Sardinia, where a high prevalence of centenarians is registered. Participants were presented with several tools assessing psychological well-being, lifestyle, social desirability, religiosity and subjective physical health.

Results: A hierarchical regression analysis revealed that the social desirability measure is the best predictor of general subjective well-being, whereas further predictors are age, perceived physical health and gardening. A significant but moderate relationship was also found between psychological well-being, subjective physical health and religiosity, while controlling for social desirability.

Conclusions: Social desirability seems to contaminate the self-rating of psychological well-being in late adulthood. Moreover, from a developmental perspective, age-related factors, life style and perceived physical health are strictly related to and therefore influence the perception of life quality in the third and fourth age.

Keywords:

• aging
• psychological well-being
• social desirability
• religion
• physical health

Acknowledgements

Part of the paper was revised when the second author was a visiting professor at the University of Cagliari, thanks to the financial support sponsored by the Sardinian Regional Government.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.