Social participation and self-rated psychological health

Although structural and cognitive social capital have been hypothesized to have positive influence on psychological health, few papers found positive correlation and causal relationship between social capital dimensions and psychological wellbeing. This longitudinal study investigates the effect of social participation in associations - member, active, member and active - on self-rated psychological health using five waves of the British Household Panel Survey that follows the same individuals between years 1991 and 1995. Self-rated psychological health is assessed by single items of the General Health Questionnaire (GHQ-12). Using ordered logit fixed effect methods the paper shows that being member and active in associations increases all “positive” items of self-rated psychological health and decreases two main “negative” items of psychological wellbeing