Associations between parental socioeconomic position, conscientiousness, and health among Finnish vocational upper secondary school students

This thesis sheds light on the associations between socioeconomic position, the personality trait of conscientiousness and health. While the positive association between socioeconomic position and health has been established, the mechanisms connecting the two remain to some part unclear. The goal of this thesis is to empirically assess the effects of parental socioeconomic position on adolescent and young adult health, through the mediator of adolescent and young adult conscientiousness. To explore these associations, correlation and regression analysis were utilized. This thesis utilizes data from the Let’s Move It intervention trial, a cluster-randomized parallel group trial intervention made to increase physical activity and reduce sedentary behavior of vocational upper secondary school students in the Helsinki metropolitan area. Utilizing the data from the Let’s Move It intervention trial, a measurement of parental socioeconomic position was formed as the highest parental educational attainment of either parent. To measure the personality trait of conscientiousness, a sum variable of two conscientiousness items from the ten-item personality inventory (TIPI) was constructed. General health was measured with self-rated health. Correlation and regression analysis between the three variables were conducted to investigate the associations. This thesis didn’t find statistically significant support for the hypothesis that parental educational attainment would predict adolescents’ and young adults’ conscientiousness. However, in line with previous research, the personality trait of conscientiousness was found to be a predictor of health for adolescents and young adults. Finally, and contrarily to the previous studies, the analysis found that parental educational attainment does not predict self-rated health in adolescents and young adults. As the analysis didn’t find support for all of the aforementioned hypotheses, the effect of parental socioeconomic position on adolescent and young adult health through adolescent and young adult conscientiousness was not assessed with a mediation analysis. The results of this thesis indicate that, as earlier studies have pointed out, the associations connecting conscientiousness, health and parental socioeconomic position are multifaceted, with many of them being bidirectional or having been indicated to form longer chains of variables acting as mediators and moderators. One reason for the results of this thesis being contrary to earlier studies might be unknown mediating and moderating effects. To increase the understanding of these complex relations in the future, both explorative research and studies that test earlier research are needed.