Associations between self‐efficacy across adulthood and midlife cognitive function: Evidence from the National Child Development Study (NCDS)

Abstract Background Previous research has shown that self‐efficacy is associated with a range of health outcomes. However, little is known about relationships between self‐efficacy and cognition across the life‐course. The aims of this study were to test (1) whether trajectories of self‐efficacy from age 33 to 50 are associated with midlife cognitive function (age 50); and (2) whether self‐efficacy acts as a path through which the relationship between childhood factors and adult cognition operates. Method Data used were from the National Child Development Study, a longitudinal birth cohort of 17,415 people born during a single week of 1958. Measures of self‐efficacy were available at ages 33, 42, 46, and 50. Measures of immediate and delayed memory, verbal fluency, processing speed, and processing accuracy were available at age 50. Growth mixture models were run to identify longitudinal trajectories of self‐efficacy. Structural equation modes (SEMs) were run to test associations between different trajectories of self‐efficacy and adult cognitive function. Next, mediation models were used to test the direct, indirect and total effects of childhood factors on adult cognitive function, through accumulation of self‐efficacy. Result According to standard indices (AIC, BIC, LRT, class proportions, etc), a 5‐class trajectory model best fitted the data (Figure 1). SEM models showed that compared with persistently high self‐efficacy, being in any other trajectory was significantly associated with poorer immediate and delayed memory, verbal fluency and processing speed. Being in the moderate and decreasing self‐efficacy trajectory was significantly associated with poorer processing accuracy, compared with the high self‐efficacy group. Greater accumulation (number of time points with high self‐efficacy) over time was significantly associated with better cognitive function in all domains. Mediation models showed significant indirect effects of childhood cognition and education on immediate memory through the accumulation of self‐efficacy score, but not for sex or childhood socioeconomic position. Conclusion Results show that in this prospective birth cohort, persistently high self‐efficacy across early adulthood to midlife (age 33 to 50) was significantly associated with higher cognitive function in midlife. This may be one path through which associations between childhood factors (childhood cognition and education) and adult cognitive function may operate.