Psychological control as antecedent of life satisfaction in retirement

A review of literature on life satisfaction in retirement has revealed a number of factors which offer contradictory results. This thesis is an investigation of the relationship between psychological control and several predictors of life satisfaction in retirement, viz., perceptions of health, attitude towards retirement, planning for the future, leisure activity, perceptions, and expectations. Of special interest is the degree to which psychological control interacts with and, thus, moderates the impact of these predictors on life satisfaction. A self-administered questionnaire was mailed to a socio-economically homogeneous population of retired iron workers on pension plan in the Greater Vancouver area in British Columbia (n=190). The 85 respondents were all male. Pearson Correlation Coefficients and a two-way analysis of variance were used in the statistical analysis. The main findings are as follows: a) with the exception of perceptions and expectations, the correlations were positive and significant at the .05 level; b) in the analysis of variance the predicted interaction effects were not significant; c) a significant main effect at the .05 level on life satisfaction was found only for perceptions of health; d) the level of life satisfaction in retirement was independent of socio-economic status. The study results support the importance of psychological control in life satisfaction in retirement.Arts, Faculty ofSocial Work, School ofGraduat