Journal of Aging Research greater levels of self-eﬃcacy could lead to more eﬀective coping and higher levels of physical and mental health. Centenarians in assisted living facilities are surrounded by potential supporters and provisions that are available if needed and called upon [37]. Also, they are not in private homes where they could be isolated or distant from support and they are not in nursing homes where chronic physical and mental health concerns are often experienced. These very old adults, residing in an assisted living facility, may be in the best of situations: they are independent in terms of most if not all activities of daily living and, if needed, social resources in terms of network members’ availability and social provisions are close at hand. Additionally, Holahan et al. [74] proposed and tested a mediation model that posited the indirect eﬀects of social resources on psychological adjustments through personality characteristics such as self-conﬁdence. They found that in situations of high stress the indirect eﬀect model ﬁt the data, whereas in lower stress situations, direct eﬀects were found. It might be that centenarians in our study have been in assisted living facilities for a lengthy period of time and were facing the stressful move to a nursing home. Either explanation of the results ﬁts with the particular eﬀectiveness of the support-eﬃcacy for this group of older adults. In support of this explanation for centenarians in assisted living facilities, the hypothesized mediating model explained the most variance in both outcomes, mental and physical health (41% and 48%, resp.), compared to the models tested for centenarians in other living situations. Three unique ﬁndings of the current study for cente- narians in private homes were noted: (a) the inﬂuence of social provisions on physical health was completely medi- ated through self-eﬃcacy, whereas it was not for mental health, (b) the inﬂuence of social resources on physical health was partially mediated through self-eﬃcacy, and (c) social resources did not inﬂuence mental health directly or indirectly; only social provisions directly inﬂuenced mental health. Centenarians in private homes are truly expert survivors [75], and while not necessarily healthy as compared to younger adults, they are likely autonomous individuals [76]. The complete mediation of social support or functional helps through self-eﬃcacy hints to the fact that “learned helplessness” has not become the norm for these individuals. Either they are receiving very appropriate support that does not undermine their self-conﬁdence or they perceive support that exists if they need it. Bandura [31] referred to eﬃcacy expectations or beliefs that one can do or perform particular actions, a belief about personal competence [77]. Once again, the literature addressing why older adults transition to assisted living facilities or nursing homes provided insight into the probable reasons for this mediated path. One factor related to relocation is the need for help with activities of daily living and medication management [78]. Perhaps, for this group of centenarians living in a private home and experiencing higher levels of independence than their peers in assisted living facilities or nursing homes, the frequency of contact with social network members (directly and indirectly inﬂuencing physical health) and the particular types of support provided by others’ assistance enables them to feel 7 competent or capable of accomplishing the tasks necessary to remain in their residential setting, leading to perceptions of better physical health. In addition, these participants could be healthier than those not residing in private homes. Thus, whatever supportive relationships were in place and active helped the centenarians to maintain a level of physical health concomitant with independent living and associated feelings of self-eﬃcacy. As mentioned above, the work of Holohan et al. [74] demonstrated that indirect eﬀects of social support through personality characteristics such as self-eﬃcacy operated primarily under stressful conditions. It may be that centenarians living in private homes will ﬁnish their years in a private setting, at least until near the end of life when their physical health begins to precipitously fail. Perhaps private home dwelling is associated with lower stress levels, thus explaining the direct inﬂuence of social provisions on their mental health, and why, regarding their physical health, which is necessary for dwelling in a private home, both direct and indirect inﬂuences of social relations were operative. In addition, we believe that this line of thinking may be one explanation for the lack of inﬂuence on mental health by self-eﬃcacy either directly or as a mediator; the strong, direct inﬂuence of social provisions overrode the inﬂuence of the participants’ personal perspective of their own mastery. Likely, the stress is low in the presence of such supportive help as centenarians living in private dwellings do so with support from others. When that support is perceived to be available or present, it likely contributes more to their mental health than their own perception of self-eﬃcacy. For centenarians residing in nursing homes, self- eﬃcacy’s lack of association with physical health is a unique ﬁnding. Once one resides in a nursing facility, it is likely that a strong sense of self-eﬃcacy is not helpful or advantageous over outcomes where one has minimal inﬂuence such as physical health [76]. However, instrumental and received social support are concomitant with nursing home residence and likely explain the direct eﬀect of social provisions on physical health. As mentioned in the results section regarding the supplemental analyses, we did ﬁnd a strong indirect eﬀect of mental status and education on mental health through self-eﬃcacy. In addition, we mentioned the strong association between social provisions and activities of daily living. Consequently, we deleted activities of daily living from the model because of multicollinearity. These ﬁndings agree with a recent meta-analysis of 77 reports based on longitudinal data from community-based samples. It found the strongest predictors of nursing home admission included functional disability, cognitive impairment, and prior nursing home use [14]. At this stage of the life span and in this residential setting, there is likely little centenarians can do regarding their physical health, other than utilizing the direct services of others. However, participants who have higher levels of cognitive ability tend to have higher levels of self-eﬃcacy and in turn higher levels of mental health. This discussion may also provide an explanation regarding the inﬂuence of self-eﬃcacy on mental health for centenarians residing in nursing homes. Whereas, for those in private homes, perception of self-eﬃcacy was not found to inﬂuence mental health—social provisions tended to directly and