Cognitive heterogeneity, health dynamics, and subjective well-being across adulthood: evidence from the German SOEP longitudinal panel

Abstract Background Self-rated health is an important correlate of life satisfaction, but the strength of this association varies across individuals. The present study examined whether cognitive clusters derived from performance-based measures of verbal knowledge and response-time characteristics moderate the within-person association between changes in self-rated health and life satisfaction. Methods Performance-based cognitive measures from the German Socio-Economic Panel Innovation Sample (SOEP-IS) were used to derive cognitive profiles based on verbal knowledge, processing speed, and processing-speed variability. Cognitive profiles assessed in 2014 were linked prospectively to longitudinal observations from the German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP-CORE) collected between 2014 and 2023. Random-effects within-between linear mixed-effects models examined the association between within-person changes in self-rated health and life satisfaction and tested whether this association was moderated by cognitive profile. Additional between-person analyses examined associations between cognitive profiles and self-rated health, life satisfaction, and affect. Results Cognitive clusters were associated with between-person differences in self-rated health and subjective well-being. In the primary longitudinal model, within-person improvements in self-rated health were associated with small increases in life satisfaction, although this association was attenuated in the survey-weighted sensitivity analysis. Cognitive clusters did not explain individual differences in how changes in self-rated health translated into changes in life satisfaction over time, a finding that was consistent across sensitivity analyses. Conclusions Findings suggest that the cognitive performance measures examined here are associated with between-person differences in self-rated health and subjective well-being but do not systematically account for individual differences in how life satisfaction responds to changes in self-rated health over time.