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Updated: Aug 19, 2026

Characterization of the Sense of Agency over the Actions of Neural-machine Interface-operated Prostheses
Published on: January 7, 2019
Age variations in personal agency and self-esteem: the context of physical disability
1University of Maryland, USA. sschieman@socy.umd.edu
Objectives:
This study examines how age patterns in health control, self-efficacy, and self-esteem are influenced by age-correlated social status, health, personality, and social integration variables.
Methods:
Ordinary least squares regression documents age patterns in data from a 1985 community sample of 1,549 physically disabled and nondisabled individuals from southwestern Ontario, Canada.
Results:
Older respondents report lower health control, self-efficacy, and self-esteem. Less education, more physical impairment, poorer global health, less empathy, and less introspectiveness explain about 43% of age's negative association with health control and more than half of its negative association with self-esteem. In addition, age is associated more negatively with self-efficacy among the disabled. Social status variables conceal the strength of the age-by-disability interaction coefficient, while health accounts for almost an equal amount.
Discussion:
The findings describe how age-correlated personal and social factors contribute to, or statistically conceal, older adults' sense of health control, self-efficacy, and self-esteem.
Related Concept Videos
The Sense of Self: Reflected Self-Appraisal and Social Comparison
Self-Presentation: Self-Monitoring and Self-Handicapping
Self-Esteem
Sources of Self-Esteem I: Family Experience
Sources of Self-Esteem II: Performance Feedback
Sources of Self-Esteem III: Social Comparison

