Advances in the Conceptualization of the Stress Process, Essays in Honor of Leonard I. Pearlin
Abstract
The stress process paradigm has been one of the most dominant conceptual models of health and illness over the past three decades. The contributions to this volume chart a new course for the stress process, extending the paradigm conceptually, methodologically, and substantively. Written in honor of Leonard I. Pearlin, the leading proponent of the stress process, the contributions to this volume provide a new direction for stress process research. Featuring contributions from leading researchers, and an afterword by Leonard I. Pearlin, this comprehensive volume covers three major sections:-Conceptual and methodological extensions of the stress process-The roles of family and work in the stress process, throughout the life course-Psychosocial factors that impact health outcomes This volume will be an invaluable resource for researchers in sociology, social psychology and public health, all seeking to understand the pervasive role of stress on social disparities in health and illness.
Chapters (12)
One of the pleasures of preparing for this volume was the opportunity to re-read Leonard Pearlin’s papers, discovering again the depth of his sensitivity to and respect for people who are undergoing hardships and troubles. Pearlin insisted repeatedly in his work that our job is to understand how people cope with ordinary problems in their lives, not rare or extraordinary ones. He kept his eye firmly fixed on the very difficult, sometimes intractable, problems that wear away people’s coping resources, despite their best efforts. Pearlin never blamed the victim in his research because he was exquisitely aware that structural and interpersonal constraints can keep people entrapped in roles that are strain-filled and damaging. In that spirit, the focus of this paper will be on people in situations that are persistently or increasingly stressful in the long run.
A fundamental objective of the stress process model is to explain the connection between low social status and high levels of psychological distress and disorder (Pearlin 1989, 1999; Pearlin et al. 1981). This goal has been realized, in part, through the elaboration of the connection between exposure to stressors and status locations within various institutions and social arrangements – education, occupation, economy, gender, and race/ethnicity. In addition, the model articulates the role of low social status in limiting access to psychosocial resources that might otherwise ameliorate the adverse mental health impact of exposure to stress.
Applications of the model that emphasize social status generally treat social status as an attribute of the individual, for example, the person’s educational attainment. However, Wheaton and Clarke (2003) call attention to the relevance of contextual social inequality to the stress process, conceptualizing inequality as existing across multiple layers of the social hierarchy. In addition, Pearlin’s (1999) recent formulations of the stress process model also call attention to the importance of context, accentuating the neighborhood in particular. In this regard, neighborhood socioeconomic disadvantage can be conceptualized as a meso-level indicator of the stratification of neighborhoods that intensifies exposure to stressors and restricts access to social psychological resources, thereby damaging health and emotional well-being.
In this chapter, I review research linking neighborhood to domains of the stress process and then describe an ecological model built around the idea that the mental health impact of the neighborhood may be conditional upon the person’s social status, exposure to stress, and access to psychosocial resources.
Leonard Pearlin’s “The Sociological Study of Stress”, a classic piece, published in the 1989 issue of the Journal of Health and Social Behavior, has inspired two decades of research. One of the central messages in that paper is that the sociological study of stress aims to document patterns between social status or dimensions of stratification and indicators of physical or mental health (Pearlin 1989, 1999). Other scholars have pursued this line of inquiry by documenting a social distribution or epidemiology of stress exposure and their subsequent links to health outcomes in large community-based or nationally representative surveys (e.g., Mirowsky and Ross 2003a, b; Turner et al. 1995). So, for example, women tend to report higher levels of depression; age is inversely associated with levels of anger; the well-educated tend to report fewer physical symptoms and so on. In addition, researchers have then sought to explain the reasons for variations in health outcomes across social status or dimensions of stratification (Mirowsky 1999). These explanations are often linked to the unequal distribution of exposure to various forms of adversities (among other things) (Aneshensel 1992; McLeod and Nonnemaker 1999; Wheaton 1999).
This basic orienting framework of the stress process model has guided my own research over the past decade. As Pearlin (1983) has observed, some of the most common chronic stressors occur in the main social roles of daily life – especially work and family (or their intersection). The broad scope and utility of the stress process framework is especially notable here. For example, scholars in the sociology of religion have sought to apply its concepts and predictions to describe the religion–mental health association (Ellison 1994). Thus, in addition to work and family contexts, there has been recent interest in linking the activities and beliefs embedded in the religious role with stress and mental health processes.
A principal feature of the stress process paradigm is its distinctly sociological emphasis on understanding how social structure has a pervasive influence on individuals’ exposure to stressors and their responses to these experiences. In his definitive paper on the sociological study of stress, Leonard Pearlin (1989) describes how individuals’ locations in the social structure of society have consequences for their psychological well-being. His consideration of the social contexts in which stressful experiences occur, the resources with which they respond to stressors, and the manifestations of stress has provided sociologists with an agenda for research that has stimulated sociological inquiry for more than two decades. Pearlin’s explication of the stress process paradigm was soon followed by an outpouring of research papers that sought to explore the impact of various statuses and roles on stress and its manifestations. This work continues today at an ever-accelerating rate of scholarly production.
Consider an urban neighborhood, where houses and apartment buildings dot the landscape in a bustling community. In one home, we find a wife who has recently taken on additional paid work due to her husband’s layoff. Across the street, family members feel continual strain from the “second shift” of caring for two young children in combination with two demanding full-time professional jobs. They are considering what to do, because in the words of the father, “It’s not working for us.” A third home contains what others regard as a “shattered” family, suffering from the tragedy of a teenager killed in a drunk-driving accident two years back. The next block down, family members decide that in order to keep a youngster from potential trouble with his peers, he will be sent to live with an aunt in the summer, where he will take a job and contribute income to the family. Peering into another home, we find a single woman living alone, tending to her aging mother across town, negotiating a network of care comprised of siblings and the mother’s friends. She considers the costs, financial and emotional, of persuading her mother to leave her lifelong residence in order to receive more extended care than the daughter’s network can provide. The people in this neighborhood exhibit varying degrees of distress, but to understand how they are negotiating their difficulties, appreciating individuals as variably enmeshed in family systems can extend our understanding of the stress process.
Depression is one of the most common psychiatric disorders among youth and adults. It is considered to be a serious mental health problem due to its chronicity, severity, and social and health consequences (Cicchetti and Toth 1998; Kessler et al. 2005). Previous research on youth has shown that early stressful experiences contribute to the early onset of depressive disorder, with a trend toward an increasingly younger age of onset (Kessler et al. 2001; Kessler and Magee 1993; Wickrama et al. 2005). Research has also shown that depressive disorder tends to: (1) recur over time (homotypic continuity), (2) be co-morbid concurrently with other psychiatric disorders, and (3) influence the onset of other psychiatric disorders (heterotypic continuity) (Costello et al. 2003; Kessler et al. 2005). An increasing volume of research reveals that there are a number of socioeconomic consequences of adolescent depression, with particular implications for the successful transition to young adulthood (Stoep et al. 2002; Wickrama et al. 2008).
In 1972, Leonard Pearlin fielded a study of adults living in the Chicago Urbanized Area. The interview booklet was titled, “Problems of Everyday Life,” and with this disarmingly simple title Pearlin helped to expand social understandings of the linkages between social experiences and emotional distress. In the design of that survey and of its follow-up in 1976, and in the many empirical analyses as well as conceptual developments that flowed from it and subsequent projects, Pearlin inspired a wide range of scholars across many fields to give more sustained and careful attention to the persistent rewards and strains that are embedded in ordinary lives, and in particular those embedded in ordinary and normatively expected adult social roles, including marriage, parenting, and employment. This body of work also drew new attention to the social-psychological resources that people may draw upon in managing those rewards and strains, such as their own sense of mastery and self-esteem, as well as their social supports and coping efforts.
In this essay, I first discuss key aspects of Pearlin’s stress process model, and then describe how some of my own research on work and family inter-connections draws on this framework. I then try to situate this work within a life course framework, which suggests that these connections may vary for different cohorts and at various points in the life course. Finally, I outline a future agenda that can further knowledge in this area.
Tony matters to his family. He knows that he matters to his family and derives great happiness from being a parent and husband. He shows his love for his significant others by way of fixing their cars, making money to support their needs, and providing emotional support. At least, he did all of this when he was younger. A decade ago, he was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease and over time his ability to be the father and husband, as he wants to be, has changed. His easy smile and ready laugh are forever hallmarks of his spirit, and accurately suggest the enthusiasm he has for life and family. However, a large portion of the way he used to show care for to his wife and adult children cannot be accomplished at this time. His family wonders, whether changes in the social roles he occupies as well as the physical changes he has undergone have impacted his sense of mattering to others and his overall well-being?
Concerns over a series of “differences” have been central to Leonard Pearlin’s research and thought. Throughout his career, his focus has been on the different ways in which different kinds of people deal with the different stresses that result from different types of strain (Pearlin 1989; Pearlin et al. 1981; Pearlin and Schooler 1978). A particular focal point of his research and thought has centered on the effects of different mechanisms for coping with the stresses brought on by these strains on individuals’ psychological well being (Pearlin and Schooler 1978). Early in his career, Pearlin was also the first author of the first paper (Pearlin and Kohn 1966) that specifically aimed at examining the cross-cultural validity of the hypotheses about the effects of social-structurally determined environmental conditions on individuals’ orientations and values – hypotheses based on differences in orientations and values among U.S. social strata differing in their requirements for job success (Kohn 1963).
Pearlin’s stress process model serves as an organizing instrument for the study of mental health by delineating the pathways by which stress is both created and subsequently influences mental health. In its most recent iteration (Pearlin 1999), the model emphasizes the sociological study of stress by bringing attention to the way in which social status is endemic to each aspect of the stress process. As Pearlin (1999) states, “the social and economic statuses of people are imposed on the stress process. It is these characteristics that make the model and the orientation to stress research it embodies quintessentially sociological” (p. 397). Thus, core social statuses such as race, class, and gender are seen as both conditioning exposure to stress, as well as the direct and indirect paths by which stress influences mental health.
The victimization of children remains a substantial problem in the United States. Past studies have documented both a high prevalence of victimization exposure (Finkelhor and Dziuba-Leatherman 1994; Hashima and Finkelhor 1999) and damaging mental health consequences of victimization among youth (Augoustinos 1987; Beitchman et al. 1991; Kaufman 1991; National Research Council 1993; Wolfe 1987).
The stress process model developed and expanded by Leonard Pearlin and colleagues (Pearlin 1989, 1999; Pearlin et al. 1981) is implicit in much of the research on child victimization. Victimization experiences, such as maltreatment by parents, physical and emotional bullying by peers, and sexual assault represent important sources of stress for youth, often having both short and long term effects on mental health. But more explicit applications of the stress framework that seek to specify victimization pathways over time and incorporate broader contextual factors are less common. Research into child victimization has been fragmented and largely detached from traditional social stress research, often having a narrow focus on individual types of victimization and ignoring nonvictimization stressors (Turner et al. 2006). I argue that attention to stress processes, particularly as they pertain to stress proliferation and how stress exposure histories represent contexts for subsequent victimization, is a fruitful avenue for research on child victimization and mental health.
The philosophy of science invisibly guides much of our work, how we think, what we assume. Although social science is fundamentally empirical, the dictates of philosophy still tell us what we are supposed to achieve and how to behave in our work. We generally accept the dictum known as Occam’s Razor – that the simplest explanation is usually the best one. We still take our reference points in discussions of causation from the voluminous work in philosophy – discussions driven by the issue of causality in a physical, not social, world – and wonder how we can approximate the ideal set by this discourse.
Kuhn (1967) famously argued that scientific paradigms are qualitatively distinct eras in the history of science, involving major re-organizations of the assumptive universe, rather than a simple cumulative progression of findings. This argument has had a major influence on how we think about science – perhaps too much of an influence relative to the actual situation on the ground in the more data-infused sciences and social sciences at the beginning of the twenty-first century.
... Pearlin proposed definitions for each concept in SPM and used the same theoretical definitions for the concepts used in other studies; thus, SPM met the semantic consistency criterion (Pearlin et al., 1990). Pearlin"s SPM is an open model conducive to further elaboration, extension, and innovation (Wheaton, 2009). In addition, the relationships between the SPM components are complex, and their development regarding the social lives of individuals is ongoing (Wheaton, 2009). ...
... Pearlin"s SPM is an open model conducive to further elaboration, extension, and innovation (Wheaton, 2009). In addition, the relationships between the SPM components are complex, and their development regarding the social lives of individuals is ongoing (Wheaton, 2009). Resources are not confined to positive or negative, and the same resources may act as mediators or moderators (Wheaton 2009). ...
... In addition, the relationships between the SPM components are complex, and their development regarding the social lives of individuals is ongoing (Wheaton, 2009). Resources are not confined to positive or negative, and the same resources may act as mediators or moderators (Wheaton 2009). Although SPM has three conceptual models to capture the potential relationships between stressors and resources, the model may be tailored to the aims of each study since there is more than one way to measure caregivers" stress (Pearlin et al., 1990). ...
This article analyzed the stress process model (SPM) using Fawcett and Desanto-Madeya’s approach and assessed its application among informal caregivers. This approach involved two phases including theory analysis and evaluation. Theory evaluation indicated that although SPM is derived from social discipline, the theoretical scope, content, and context are relevant to nursing and characterized by testable, empirical, and pragmatic adequacy. SPM is an evolving model, and the criteria for internal consistency were partially met. However, those of parsimony were unmet. SPM helps to identify factors that predispose informal caregivers’ stress. Thus, its use is recommended in nursing practice, education, and research.
... The devastating effects of the pandemic might have amplified the pre-existing chronic stressors and generated additional stressors in aging populations (Egger et al., 2021). According to the stress process model, supportive factors may buffer the negative impact of a single stressor on health outcomes; however, the co-occurrence of multiple chronic stressors and stress proliferation often compromise an individual's coping mechanisms, leading to poor physical and mental health outcomes (Avison et al., 2009;Pearlin, 2010). ...
... The CSS-8 was originally developed by Troxel et al. (2003) based on Bromberger and Matthews's (1996) life stressor inventory. Informed by the stress process model (Avison et al., 2009;Pearlin et al., 1981), the CSS-8 was added to the HRS longitudinal data collection in 2010. Respondents evaluated the occurrence of each chronic stressor and subjective upset associated with each stressor during the past 12 months using a Likerttype scale (0 = did not occur; 1 = not upsetting; 2 = somewhat upsetting; and 3 = very upsetting). ...
... Instead, one chronic condition is likely to increase the risk of other comorbidities, compromise the health in family members, and deepen the financial burden from medical expenses or sick leave (Wickrama et al., 2021). Strikingly, emerging evidence has shown that stress proliferation and interrelated stress experience tend to deteriorate self-management behaviors, due to behavioral maladaptation to chronic stress, enhanced habitualresponding system, and diminished goal-directed processing (Avison et al., 2009;Meier et al., 2022). Learning from the hard lesson of the COVID-19 pandemic, the nursing profession has realized how various sources of chronic stress play an important role in dictating older patients' health outcomes and self-management. ...
Studies examining the associations of chronic stressors with sleep health in older adults have shown conflicting results. While the COVID-19 pandemic increased perceived stress at the population level, less is known about chronic stressors experienced by older adults in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic and its impact on sleep health in an aging population. This study aims to examine the association of older adults' chronic stress with insomnia symptoms during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic. A cross-sectional analysis was performed using early-release COVID-19 data from the Health and Retirement Study. Data on chronic stressors and insomnia symptoms in older adults (N = 2021; mean age = 68.8) were examined. Co-occurrence network analysis, latent class analysis, Rao-Scott χ2 tests, and multivariable logistic regression were used to characterize the co-occurrence of chronic stressors and associations with insomnia symptoms. The most common co-occurring chronic stressors during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic were self-health issues, family-health issues, and financial stress. Older adults experiencing frequent stress co-occurrence had 91% higher odds of difficulty initiating sleep (p < 0.001), 40% higher odds of frequent nocturnal awakening (p = 0.028), and 83% higher odds of nonrestorative sleep (p < 0.001). However, adjustment for health risk factors and COVID-19 concerns attenuated the effects, leaving strongest association for difficulty initiating sleep (odds ratio = 1.51, p = 0.010). Frequent stress co-occurrence plays an important role linking chronic stress to insomnia symptoms in an aging population. Ongoing research is needed to examine the lingering effects of frequent stress co-occurrence on older adults' sleep health in the post COVID-19 era.
... The importance of social integration is not surprising, as anthropological research on psychedelics has consistently shown that historically, these drugs were consumed in communal religious settings within various indigenous societies. Examples include Bwiti in Africa, the Amazon tribes in South America, the Aztecs in North America, and the Mayan and Inca in Central America [11,[57][58][59]. Contemporary practices have tried to replicate those communal settings by consuming psychedelics in natural settings within a collective group [46]. ...
... Thus, it is likely that the reason positive social integration interacts with psychedelic experiences is because not only do psychedelics boost feelings of empathy and connectedness, but those who are more positively socially integrated may also have more tangible enacted resources [57]. This allows them to experience firsthand the perception that they are loved and cared for, critical for improved health [58]. ...
Although the use of psychedelics to impact health has seen growth, little research has tested the effects of culture conditions on the relationship. More specifically, how does marital status and family size affect the relationship between psychedelics and health? This study tests the relationship between Lifetime Classic Psychedelic Use (LCPU), marital status, and household size (number of people living in a household) on levels of psychological distress in the past 30 days. This project uses pooled data from the National Survey of Drug Use and Health (NSDUH) (2010 to 2018) (N = 674,521). The Final sample size is determined by the dependent variable, psychological distress in the past month (n = 158,633). The analysis includes a series of nested logistic regression models conducted in Stata 17. Results indicate that LCPU is independently associated with better health, but the association between LCPU and health varies across levels of household size. Larger households are associated with higher levels of distress, which are then exacerbated among psychedelics users. Furthermore, three-way interactions reveal that the negative association between household size and distress gets larger among psychedelic users who are married, divorced, and widowed. Overall, results suggest that household size negatively impacts the association between LCPU and health, with those who are married, divorced, and widowed experiencing the worst outcomes.
... Other studies, primarily among firefighters, emphasized the crucial role of partners' support for volunteers in emergency service work (Cowlishaw et al., 2010). This is in line with Pearlin's general finding that support is associated with integration into various social institutions and contexts (Aneshensel, 2010). ...
Professionals in emergency services organizations (firefighters, paramedics, police, military) and professionals in hospital-based emergency settings (emergency rooms, operating rooms, intensive care units) are frequently exposed to potentially traumatic events. They are at higher risk for the development of trauma-related mental health problems than the general population. To maintain mental health, it is essential for individuals to be embedded in a social environment with supportive relationships. We employed ethnographical research that explored the social environment of seven high-risk professional groups in the Netherlands through observational fieldwork, interviews, and document analysis. We analyzed the data using Chie Nakane’s social anthropological model of Group formations and interpersonal connections as a heuristic lens. Findings indicate that in the social environments of these various high-risk occupational groups, two different social structural tendencies can be distinguished: vertical versus horizontal group formation and interpersonal connections. In our discussion, we suggest how these different social structures in which the professional is embedded might explain inconsistent results in current studies, and how knowledge of these different social structures might be relevant for support and prevention of trauma-related mental health problems.
... Besides, caregivers' levels of distress are high enough to establish a public health concern (National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine The previous evidence shows that caregivers' background factors, caregiving activities, and care recipient's characteristics affect caregivers' mental health outcomes (Schulz et al., 2020). However, the prior research is primarily provided by the Stress Appraisal model of Yates and the Stress Process by Pearlin in empirical caregiving studies (Avison et al., 2010;Phetsitong et al., 2019). Besides, several different types of research have addressed caregivers' mental health challenges (Geng et al., 2018;Muñoz-Bermejo et al., 2020;Phetsitong et al., 2019). ...
This dissertation investigates the social determinants of health and
associated inequalities among family caregivers of older adults in Finland. Family caregivers’ social determinants were evaluated using the Conceptual Framework for Action on the Social Determinants of Health by Solar and Irwin (2010) and through four sub-studies.
Sub-study I was an integrative literature review focusing on social determinants of mental health among older caregivers. The World Health Organization’s framework on older adults’ social determinants of mental health was used to identify and synthesise the evidence. The evidence showed that caregivers’ mental health inequalities are associated with physical health outcomes.
Sub-studies II to IV were part of a randomised population-based multidisciplinary intervention study conducted in Eastern Finland (the LENTO study: LifEstyle, NutriTion, and Oral health in caregivers). The aims were to assess family caregivers’ health inequalities and diet-related disparities, and the associated social determinants of health. The final sub-study assessed inequalities in diet and quality of life (QoL) among family caregivers of different financial groups and the effects of individually tailored nutritional guidance on these family caregivers.
The study sample included family caregivers from Kuopio and Vesanto. These family caregivers had a valid care allowance agreement in 2019 and cared for a person aged 65 or older at home. They were interviewed about sociodemographic factors, diagnosed diseases, self-rated health, QoL, and nutritional status. Data were collected by a study nurse and clinical nutritionist at baseline and the end of a six-month intervention (from June 2019 to June 2020) in family caregivers’ households. Data were analysed using parametric and non-parametric tests to assess the differences among the study population and the effects of the intervention.
The evidence shows that family caregivers’ age, gender, municipality of living, educational attainment, subjective poverty, and food availability are associated with their inequalities in health, diet, or QoL. However, the QoL among financially vulnerable family caregivers improved at the end of the individually tailored nutritional guidance, narrowing the inequalities among family caregivers.
This dissertation provides further recommendations for healthcare, nursing research and education, nutritional guidance, and policy to narrow the avoidable health inequalities among family caregivers.
... Embitterment can be understood as a spectrum of emotions (Hasanoğlu, 2008;Linden & Rotter, 2018), ranging from normal emotion to chronic emotional anguish, and, eventually, to a mental disorder known as posttraumatic embitterment disorder (PTED). Although emotional distress due to NLEs is not necessarily harmful or permanent, some fail to cope with their social distress or feel insulted or rejected, suggesting that they may have emotional disorders (Avison et al., 2009). Given that the state of embitterment can be varied and changed, knowing what factors can aggravate or reduce embitterment over time, as well as who is at risk, is important. ...
Objective: To examine the prevalence of embitterment by following individuals over time and to statistically evaluate how factors known as correlates of embitterment affect different groups with or without changes in embitterment over time. Method: Responses for the posttraumatic embitterment disorder (PTED) self-rating Scale were collected from the same 1,153 adults who participated in a follow-up survey delivered 14 months apart. Suggested cutoff points were applied to identify changes in embitterment and four groups were identified. For each group, the relative impacts of factors that affect changes in or maintenance of embitterment, such as negative life events (NLEs), belief in a just world (BJW), social support, relative deprivation, and resilience, were statistically analyzed. Results: The average PTED scores were relatively high for both surveys (M = 1.73 and 1.58, respectively). “Persistent” or “increased” in embitterment was seen for 47.3% of the participants. In particular, 15.3% (Wave 1) and 12.1% (Wave 2) of participants experienced clinically relevant levels of embitterment. NLEs, BJW, relative deprivation, and resilience showed significant associations with the risk of persistence or deterioration of embitterment. Conclusions: Our study highlights embitterment as a dynamic emotion that can either be aggravated or moderated over time. Embitterment can be elicited by joint effects of multiple social and interactional factors including known embitterment correlates, and relative deprivation is confirmed as a possible core elicitor of embitterment in the context of comparative justice. These findings imply that additional longitudinal research and development of practices for mental health prevention in general populations are needed.
... Given their universality, EPA ratings could prove useful for bridging disparate approaches both within and across disciplines. For example, because stress is the implied mechanism linking self-sentiments to health outcomes, future work should examine the link between EPA dimensions and prominent theories of stress such as the stress process model [77,78]. While research has tied ACT to other social psychological theories [37], a fruitful avenue for interdisciplinary research would be to compare it to theories of culture and meaning found in other disciplines such as anthropology [79,80]. ...
High status occupations support positive health outcomes through providing access to both material and psychosocial resources. However, common measures of occupational status such as occupational prestige scores fail to capture cultural esteem that certain occupations can provide because they are primarily associated with the material dimensions of status, like income. Drawing on Weberian conceptions of status and a body of social psychological research on the measurement of cultural meaning, we argue that measuring people's ratings of their occupations on three dimensions—evaluation (good/bad), potency (powerful/weak), and activity (active/inactive)—provides an occupational status indicator that more fully captures psychosocial resources like esteem that are associated with health than more commonly used occupational prestige scores. Using a nationally representative longitudinal health and wellbeing survey of 940 American law enforcement officers collected between 2020 and 2022, we evaluate the predictive ability of evaluation, potency, and activity (EPA) ratings across thirteen measures of health and wellbeing. We find that EPA ratings were significant and positive predictors of eleven of thirteen outcomes with stronger effects for mental health outcomes compared to physical health outcomes. EPA ratings were more predictive than more commonly used occupational prestige scores. We conclude that EPA ratings are better predictors of health outcomes than occupational prestige scores and so may allow health researchers to better understand the relationship between occupational status and health.
... First, we are not able to firmly establish causal ordering because we use cross-sectional data. However, we are generally confident concerning the time-order in this study as the relationships between our variables are theoretically informed and consistent with the prior literature on stress-mental health relationship (Avison et al., 2009;Pearlin, 1989;Pearlin et al., 1981;Timmer et al., 2022). Also, our goal is to establish the relationship between levels of our independent variables and dependent variable, not a change over time. ...
During wartime, individuals suffer from high levels of mental health disorders, with depression being one of the most common mental health issues. Even as peace returns, the loss of personal, social, and emotional resources can make widespread depression difficult to overcome. Internally displaced people (IDPs) are a particularly vulnerable group, which has received relatively little attention in the peace and conflict literature. Thus, there is an urgent need to better understand and address mental health issues of IDPs. Focusing on Ukraine, we use survey data collected from 300 IDPs in two major urban areas who were forced to flee their homes due to the Russian invasion that started in 2014. Specifically, we examine the influences of war trauma, daily stressors, and social support on depression. We find that having been exposed to war, both directly and indirectly, is not significantly associated with depression among IDPs in Ukraine, suggesting that war exposure may have reached a ceiling effect. On the other hand, experiencing daily stressors (e.g., prejudice, financial problems etc.) significantly increases depressive symptoms. Finally, social support, including emotional, task, and financial support from family (but not from other sources), reduces depression among IDPs. This study lays the foundation for the development of policies aimed at reducing daily stress among Ukrainian IDPs and reuniting them with their family members.
... 36 Family conflicts are a major stressor interacting with adverse life events to increase depression. 37 In Hong Kong, the population density is high, and the average living space per person is 160 square feet. 38 Given that 88.5% of the undergraduates were living with families, a study environment appropriate for effective online learning during the pandemic is essential to alleviate stresses of the students. ...
Introduction:
This study aims to investigate depressive symptoms and its association with resilience, pessimistic bias of COVID-19, lifestyle changes, and family conflicts among undergraduates in a Hong Kong university.
Methods:
1020 undergraduates in The University of Hong Kong completed the online survey between May and August 2020. Severity of depressive symptoms was assessed using the Patient Health Questionnaire-9. Resilience was assessed using the Connor-Davidson Resilience Scale. Pessimistic bias was assessed using two questions on the perceived risks of contracting COVID-19 and of dying from COVID-19. Changes in lifestyles and the presence of family conflicts were measured. Multivariable and mediation analyses were performed to examine association of depressive symptoms with other variables.
Results:
61.7% of the respondents reported having mild to severe depressive symptoms. 18.5% of the variance in depressive symptoms was explained by resilience, pessimistic bias, changes in the frequency of sleep, studying at home, and family conflict. Pessimistic bias partially mediated the association between resilience and depressive symptoms.
Conclusion:
The proportion of undergraduates with mild to severe depressive symptoms during the pandemic was high. Measures to reduce family conflict, maintain healthy daily habits, adjust pessimistic bias, and enhance resilience may help to improve the mental well-being of undergraduates during the pandemic.
... It has been regarded as a great threat to adolescent development [30,31]. The stress process model asserts that individuals who have daily exposure to a threatening environment are more likely to experience great stress, triggering psychological distress [32]. Empirical studies have also found that adolescents living in a disordered neighborhood characterized by frequent violence, alcohol use, and graffiti will perceive intense stress, increasing their vulnerability to psychological distress [33]. ...
Previous empirical studies have found that not all adolescents showed a high level of psychological distress when facing parent–child conflict, which implies that there could be some additional moderating variables in this pair association. School connectedness and neighborhood disorder have been regarded as possible moderators of this relationship, but empirical evidence is lacking. The participants in this study included 971 students from two middle schools (grades 7–9) and two high schools (grades 10–12) and their parents in the City of Y, Shanxi Province, in mainland China. The PROCESS macro was used to conduct the moderation analysis. The results revealed that both school connectedness and neighborhood disorder significantly moderated the association of parent–child conflict with adolescent psychological distress. These findings highlighted the significance of increasing school connectedness and decreasing neighborhood disorder to alleviate adolescent psychological distress, thereby contributing to related policies and interventions.
... The stress process is the dominant theoretical framework used to explain the structural origins and social distribution of mental health problems. According to the stress process, exposure to stressors increases the risk of poor mental health, though access to resources or stress moderators help buffer the mental health impacts of stress (Avison, Aneshensel, Schieman, & Wheaton, 2009;Pearlin & Bierman, 2013). ...
Purpose
Exposure to police brutality is a significant risk to adolescent mental health. This study extends this literature by exploring connections between anticipation of racially motivated police brutality and multiple facets of adolescent mental health.
Methods
Students ages 14 to 18 (n = 151) were recruited from a study administered in Baltimore City public schools. Between December 2020 and July 2021, participants completed a questionnaire assessing anticipatory stress regarding racially motivated police brutality and current mental health. Regression models examined associations between this anticipatory stress and mental health. Latent profile and regression analyses were used to examine whether anticipatory stress was more salient among adolescents with comorbid mental health symptoms, compared to those without comorbid symptoms.
Results
Youth with anticipatory stress stemming from both personal and vicarious police brutality had more symptoms of anxiety, depression, and PTSD, as well as lower hope, compared to youth without anticipatory stress. The association between anticipatory stress and anxiety was stronger for girls than boys.
Conclusions
Findings from this study highlight racialized police brutality as a common anticipated stressor among youth, particularly for girls. Findings have implications for policing interventions, including development of additional trainings for police officers and promoting positive police/youth interactions.
... As a result, individuals may be less likely to disapprove of violence. In addition, because daily stressors are a common consequence of major life events resulting in detrimental mental health outcomes (Avison et al., 2009;Pearlin & Johnson, 1977), depression may also act as a link between proliferating daily stressors and weakening moral beliefs. ...
Sometimes nations at war have the support of their citizens, at other times, civilians with little tolerance for human casualties and violence demand peaceful solutions. This study examines why moral attitudes can erode during violent conflicts and what factors may explain how it happens. Using a random sample of civilians in a vulnerable lower- and middle-income country, Ukraine, we explore the consequences of exposure to a prolonged war. Specifically, we assess the relationship between vicarious war exposure and moral beliefs about violence subsequently including daily stressors and depressive symptoms as potential pathways between them. We find that civilians who report more vicarious exposure to an ongoing war are less likely to disapprove of violence. Daily stressors and depression further serve as important pathways linking war exposure to moral beliefs about violence. Our study illustrates the need for appropriate mental health services, stress management, and other critical interventions to help populations experiencing war and other traumatic occurrences. It also suggests that future studies should pay particular attention to how vital life events affect individual beliefs and attitudes.
... Thus, the most common cause of suffering for older adults is depression The previous evidence shows that caregivers' background factors, caregiving activities, and care recipient's characteristics affect caregivers' mental health outcomes (Schulz et al., 2020). However, the prior research is primarily provided by the Stress Appraisal model of Yates and the Stress Process by Pearlin in empirical caregiving studies (Avison et al., 2010;Phetsitong et al., 2019). Besides, several different types of research have addressed caregivers' mental health challenges (Geng et al., 2018;Muñoz-Bermejo et al., 2020;Phetsitong et al., 2019). ...
Aim:
The aim of this study was to examine the reported social determinants of mental health among older caregivers in the previous caregiving literature.
Design:
An integrative literature review method of Whittemore and Knafl.
Methods:
CINAHL, MEDLINE (Ovid), PubMed, and Science Direct were searched from January 1999 to December 2019. A systematic approach and data analysis were used. The evidence of a multilevel framework by the World Health Organization was used to examine the social determinants of mental health.
Results:
Twelve articles were included. "Levels of physical health" was mainly cited factor linked to mental health inequalities among older caregivers. However, the evidence regarding caregivers' gender-related, ethnic and socioeconomic differences in mental health was relatively limited.
Conclusion:
Future research and screening programs on social determinants of mental health among older caregivers are necessary to tackle mental health inequalities. Implications informed by this research could sustain mental health equity among older caregivers.
... A fundamental issue to consider at this point is, what are the life course and structural oigins of daily racial microaggressions. A large body of research in sociology attests to the influence of stratified social systems in structuring people's everyday experiences (see Aneshensel et al., 2013;Avison et al., 2010). From this perspective, daily microaggressions and their consequences are not mere happenings or isolated events but circumstances of daily life that surface within a context of stressor constellations and disadvantaged statuses (e.g., subordinate occupational status) that are coextensive over the life course. ...
Psychologists use the term racial microaggressions to describe subtle forms of everyday racial incivility and discrimination reported by members of historically underrepresented groups. Growing evidence links self-reported experiences of racial microaggressions to health. Drawing on life-course perspectives on stress, biopsychosocial models of racism, and daily-process research, I propose a conceptual framework for investigating daily stress processes (e.g., reactivity, recovery, appraisal, coping), cumulative stressor exposures (e.g., race-related traumas, major life events, nonevents, chronic stressors), and social structural factors (e.g., institutions, social roles, statuses) that may affect the experience of racial microaggressions in everyday life. An underlying assumption is that microaggressions are dynamic in character, can vary across individuals, and are shaped by the interplay of stressor exposures across multiple timescales and levels of analysis. The article concludes by inviting researchers to use methods that account for dynamic features of everyday racialized experiences, giving sufficient attention to process, person, and context.
... The model contains four categories of constructs that can occur at any ecodevelopmental level: (a) sources of stress, (b) proximal outcomes, (c) resources that mediate and/or moderate stressrelated outcomes, and (d) stress-related outcomes. For families, adaptations of the model have been informed by family stress theories of sociology and focus on the differences between the stress process of individuals versus the family (Avison et al., 2010). Because stress can alter family dynamics, it is important to understand which stressors impact the family the most, how resources like family functioning impact the model, and the interplay between socioeconomic status and family-level stress. ...
The Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic is a worldwide event that has exacerbated stress and caused significant disruptions in the day-to-day living of families. Of particular concern are socially vulnerable families, which have felt the impacts of the pandemic most acutely. Because stress can alter family dynamics, it is important to understand which stressors impact families the most, and what resources can be leveraged to strengthen family functioning. The current study examined the impacts of COVID-19 on the conflict and cohesion of households with children compared to households without children. Additionally, we sought to assess how conflict and cohesion are related to social vulnerabilities in the context of the pandemic. Using an international sample, we analyzed responses to the COVID-19 Household Environment Scale (N = 4,122) using descriptive and bivariate analyses. Latent class analysis was used to identify patterns of family functioning in households with and without children. We found that social vulnerability was associated with more disrupted family functioning, and that households with children (n = 2,666) reported less disrupted family functioning when compared to households without children (n = 1,456), despite having higher social vulnerability scores. Our exploratory latent class analysis identified a five-class model among both subgroups. Conflict, cohesion, family functioning, and social vulnerability varied significantly by subgroup and class membership. Our findings add to a body of evidence that argues that despite facing greater vulnerability, households with children have many strengths to draw from. Family interventions that help to promote family cohesion and conflict resolution can foster resilience in stressful circumstances.
... Regarding a sense of coherence (SOC) that was considered as an intrapersonal resource for a person's handling the current situation [54], the moderate level was reported in the parents. Theoretically, the parents with high SOC are able to understand the child's illness situations and explain what has occurred. ...
A child’s hospitalization in a pediatric intensive care unit (PICU) is a stressful and suffering situation affecting the parents. This correlational study aims to investigate the predicting factors of parents’ psychological well-being with regard to a critically ill child in the PICU. The participants were 100 parents with a child hospitalized in one of the five PICUs of five tertiary hospitals. The research instruments included the Demographic Recording Form, the Child’s Behavioral and Emotional Responses Scale, the Sense of Coherence Scale-Short Form (SOC-13), Thai Version, the Jalowiec Coping Scale (JCS), the Buddhist Belief Questionnaire, the Modified Version of Social Support Questionnaire, Thai Version, and the Psychological General Well-Being Index (PGWBI). Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics, Pearson’s correlation, Spearman’s rank correlation coefficient, and hierarchical multiple regression. The results of hierarchical multiple regression showed that religious belief, the child's behavioral and emotional responses, sense of coherence, coping, and social support could explain 36 % of the variance in the psychological well-being of parents of a critically ill child. The factors that made significant contributions to the model were religious belief (β = 0.29, p < 0.01), sense of coherence (β = 0.27, p < 0.01), the child’s behavioral and emotional responses (β = -0.24, p < 0.01), social support (β = 0.22, p < 0.05), and coping (β = 0.17, p < 0.05). The results of this study may serve as preliminary information for nurses in planning nursing interventions in order to enhance the psychological well-being of the parents.
... It only took less than 30 min for the participants to answer the questionnaire. Meanwhile, we encouraged the participants to make appointments with the professional counselors asking questions about the concerns of secondary prevention of the adolescent depression on campus [59,60]. ...
The adolescent depressive prodrome has been conceptualized as an early integrated sign of depressive symptoms, which may develop to a first episode of depression or return to normal for the adolescents. In this study, depressive prodrome presented the early self-rated depressive symptoms for the sample participants. By referring to the Kutcher Adolescent Depression Scale and the psychometric characteristics of the Adolescent Depression Scale (ADR), we proposed a self-rated questionnaire to assess the severity of the depressive symptoms in adolescents before and after attending the jogging program on a high school campus in Taiwan. With the parental co-signature and self-signed informed consent form, 284 high school students under the average age of 15 years, participated in this study in March 2019. Through the software of IBMSPSS 25, we used a binary logistic model, principal component analysis (PCA), multiple-dimensional analysis, and receiver operating characteristic curve (ROC) to analyze the severity of the depressive prodrome via the threshold severity score (SC) and false positive rate (FPR). Findings revealed that attending the 15-week jogging program (3 times a week, 45 min each) on campus can change the severity status and reduce the prevalence of moderate-severe depressive prodrome by 26%. The two-dimensional approach identified three symptoms, which were the crying spell, loss of pleasure doing daily activities, and feeling the decline in memory. They kept being invariant symptoms during the course of depressive prodrome assessment for sample participants. In this study, the campus jogging program appeared to be able to affect the FPR of the measure of depressive prodrome. Compared with the subthreshold depression, the depressive prodrome emphasized the assessment from the view of the secondary prevention by representing the change from a person’s premorbid functioning up until the first onset of depression or returning to normal. However, the subthreshold depression is a form of minor depression according to DSM-5 criteria varying on the number of symptoms and duration required, highly prevalent in the concern of primary care.
... As Pearlin et al. [16] theorized the stress process that suggests social and economic structures that individuals experience influence mental health, many studies have examined the importance of structural aspects on mental health e.g., [17,18]. Poverty is concentrated in large-scale public housing complexes and public housing residents can be easily discriminated against and isolated; these structural aspects cause social exclusion among these residents. ...
This study aims to examine the differential effect of discrimination on stress between social-mix and independent public housing complexes. We analyzed the 2017 Seoul Public Housing Residents Panel Study data that were collected from public housing residents living in Seoul, Korea by running ordinal logit analyses. The empirical analysis shows that discrimination has a lower effect on stress in social-mix housing complexes than in independent public housing complexes. In addition, the moderating effect of community-based activities on the relationship between discrimination and stress was found in the independent public housing complex model.
... To link multiple types of IPV victimization as delineated above with depressive symptoms, this study utilizes the social stress paradigm-a leading framework in the sociological study of stress and mental health-that focuses on both structural and individual sources of psychological distress and depression disorder (Avison et al., 2009;Pearlin et al., 1981). Under this paradigm, traumatic stress is recognized as a major mechanism through which experiences of IPV can lead to subsequent depressive symptoms (Campbell, 2002;Winstok & Straus, 2014). ...
An emerging body of research has linked intimate partner violence (IPV) victimization with negative mental health outcomes among women in postreform China. However, limited scholarly attention has been given to the independent effects of multiple types of IPV victimization on depressive symptoms among men and women. Little is known if these independent effects will vary by gender in China where research on the association between IPV victimization and mental health did not emerge until fairly recently. Given this research paucity, this study aims to (a) examine the independent effects of different types of lifetime IPV victimization among married men and women in Sichuan province on their self-reported past 30-day depressive symptoms and (b) explore possible gender variations in these effects. The data utilized in this study came from a subsample of married men ( N = 1,083) and women ( N = 1,185) from the Third Survey of Chinese Women’s Social Status 2010, a representative sample of adults aged 18 to 64 in Sichuan province. Statistical analyses indicate that all types of lifetime IPV victimization are significantly and positively associated with past 30-day depressive symptoms for women, whereas for men lifetime experiences of general controlling behavior and sexual IPV were not statistically associated with depressive symptoms. Moreover, the effects of multiple types of IPV victimization on depressive symptoms do not significantly vary by gender. Bearing this gender-neutral pattern in mind, health professionals, governmental officials, and researchers are strongly encouraged to focus on both married men and women in their IPV and mental health intervention, prevention, and treatment endeavors in postreform China.
... Three central components of this model include sources of stress such as physical health burden, psychosocial coping resources that mediate stress, and outcomes of psychological well-being. Pearlin's model has been widely used in gerontological health research (Avison et al., 2010), with applications ranging from caregiving and mental health (Kong, 2018) to end-oflife issues (Krause, 2018). In this study, stressors are operationalized using three measures of health burden, including HIV-related conditions, age-related chronic conditions, and self-rated health. ...
Background and Objectives
Older adults with HIV face greater health burden than HIV-uninfected counterparts. Little is known about resources that might mediate the influence of physiological health burden on psychological well-being. Informed by the stress process model, we assessed the influence of multifaceted health burden indicators on depressive symptoms and evaluated the mediating effects of social support adequacy.
Research Design and Methods
This cross-sectional study used structural equation modeling with data from 640 older men who participated in the Research on Older Adults with HIV study in the United States. Health burden assessment included number of age-related chronic conditions, multiple HIV-related chronic conditions, and self-rated health. Perceptions of instrumental and emotional support adequacy measured support as a coping resource. Depressed mood as assessed by the 10-item Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale was the indicator of psychological well-being.
Results
Higher incidence of age-related conditions and worse self-rated health was significantly associated with more depressed mood. Self-rated health and HIV-related conditions showed a significant indirect effect on depressed mood via emotional support adequacy.
Discussion and Implications
Each dimension of health burden demonstrated a distinct pathway to psychological well-being for men with HIV, which should be considered when prioritizing care plans. Complementing research on medical interventions for people with HIV, these findings suggest that nonpharmacological interventions may be important for improving overall well-being.
... Rats can serve as a chronic and uncontrollable stressor for residents with frequent exposure to them. In contrast to "acute" stressors, that occur over discrete time periods (e.g., an argument with a family member), "chronic" stressors are frequent and ongoing (e.g., longterm problems with children) [57][58][59]. Participants in this study described everyday interactions with rats, whether while outdoors, visiting friends, or at home. Therefore, specific interactions with rats may serve as acute stressors, while continuous exposure to rats may represent a chronic stressor. ...
Background:
The presence of urban rats in the neighbourhood environment may negatively impact the physical and mental health of residents. Our study sought to describe the experiences with, perceptions of, and feelings towards rats and rat control efforts among a group of disadvantaged urban residents in Vancouver, Canada.
Methods:
Semi-structured interviews were held with 20 members of the Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users (VANDU) recruited by VANDU staff. Interviews were audio recorded, transcribed, and analyzed using thematic analysis.
Results:
Participants reported daily sightings of rats and close contact during encounters. Participants generally disliked encountering rats, raising issues of health and safety for themselves and the community due to the belief that rats carry disease. Fear of rats was common, and in some cases resulted in avoidance of rats. Effects of rats on participants were particularly pronounced for those living with rats in the home or for homeless participants who described impacts on sleep due to the sounds made by rats. Although rats were viewed as more problematic in their neighbourhood than elsewhere in Vancouver, participants believed there to be a lack of neighbourhood-level control initiatives that angered and disheartened participants. In combination with other community-level concerns (e.g., housing quality and availability), the presence of rats was viewed by some to align with a general disregard for the community and its residents.
Conclusions:
This study suggests that the presence of rats in urban centres may have several consequences on the physical and mental health of residents living in close contact with them. These effects may be exacerbated with continued contact with rats and when residents perceive a lack of initiative to control rats in their neighbourhood. As such, research and policies aimed at mitigating the health risks posed by rats should extend beyond disease-related risk and incorporate diverse health outcomes.
... Adaptability is effective communication with the environment, and two processes occur simultaneously: (1) Making coordinating self with situations, and (2) Situations change to adapt to needs. 22 Therefore, this training help to identify effects and feelings, to appraise them carefully, understand logical and illogical thoughts and finally they find that effective and ineffective thoughts, positive and negative effects control them. When subjects understand that their imaginations affect upon emotions and positive & negative effects, therefore they control them with learned skills and effective adaptability is created. ...
Background: Effective communication and the establishment of a good communication model among individuals have a prominent role in adaptation and can play an essential role in creating the psychological well being of married students. The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of basic life skills training on adaptability and psychological well being in married female students. Methods: The present study was a semi-experimental with pre-test and post-test with the control group. A sample of 40 female undergraduate students of Qaemshahr Azad University University in the academic year of 2017-2018 was selected with convenience sampling and divided into 2 experimental and control groups randomly (each group 20 student). The experimental group received eight sessions of basic life skills training in 2 sessions of 90 minutes per week. Control group received no training. In order to collect information, Bell’s adaptive scale and psychological well-being questionnaire used. Covariance analysis by SPSS-22 software was used to analyze the data. Results: results of covariance analysis showed that the training of basic skills of life increased the adaptability (P<0.001) and psychological well-being (P<0.001) in the experimental group compared to the control group at the post-test stage. Conclusion: According to the results of the current study, it can be used basic life skills training as an effective way to increase the psychological well-being and student adaptability.
Background
The potential benefits of IT for the well-being of older adults have been widely anticipated. However, findings regarding the impact of internet use on depressive symptoms are inconsistent. As a result of IT’s exponential growth, internet skills have supplanted internet access as the source of the digital divide.
Objective
This study evaluates the effect of internet skills on depressive symptoms through an instrumental variables (IV) approach.
Methods
Data from the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study’s wave 4 (2018) were used. This included 16,949 community residents aged 45 years and older. To overcome the endogeneity issue, we used an IV approach.
Results
Our results reveal the emergence of a second-level digital divide, the disparity in internet skills, among Chinese middle-aged and older adults. Liner regression suggests that a 1% increase in internet skills is associated with a 0.037% decrease in depressive symptoms (β=−.037, SE 0.009), which underestimates the causal effect. As expected, internet skills are an endogenous variable ( F test P value <.001). IV regressions indicate that a 1% increase in internet skills reduces 1.135% (SE 0.471) to 1.741% (SE 0.297) of depressive symptoms. These 2 IV are neither weak ( F – 1 =16.7 and 28.5; both >10) nor endogenous (Wu-Hausman test P value of .10; >.05 or >.01).
Conclusions
Better mental health is predicted through improved and higher internet skills. Consequently, residents and policy makers in China should focus on bridging the digital divide in internet skills among middle-aged and older adults.
Sociologists who study mental disorder work from a number of assumptions that define and distinguish their approach from other ways of understanding mental disorder. First, sociologists may view mental disorder as a normal consequence of social life caused by structured inequality rather than as a form of individual dysfunction. Second, they may regard mental disorder as the outcome of social processes that include the labeling of deviant behavior and stigmatic societal reactions to those labels. Third, they may define the object of study as psychological distress rather than as specific psychiatric disorders. Fourth, they may view the mental health treatment system as an institution for the social control of deviant behavior. Finally, the sociological perspective is concerned with properties of groups and populations and it is less informative regarding individual and clinical concerns. Although not all sociologists employ all of these assumptions in their research and some of these assumptions have generated considerable debate, collectively they represent what is distinctive about the sociological study of mental disorder.
Limited health literacy is associated with higher healthcare costs, poorer health, and healthcare access. Health literacy skills are necessary for the caregiving decision-making process. Informal caregivers make decisions on health issues and manage care-recipient’s disease every day. Research has shown that health literacy is a valuable set of skills for all citizens including caregivers. In this chapter, we aim to summarize the findings of the available research on the association of health literacy with other caregiving variables including caregiving self-efficacy, coping strategies, and social support.KeywordCaregiversEducationeHealthInterventions
Stressful events and chronic tension are considered a burden and a threat to physical, mental, and social health. The aim of the study was to demonstrate the associations of variation in stress exposure with social factors, physical activity, basic components of physical fitness, body mass index (BMI) and percentage of body fat (BFP). An additional objective was to identify the main BFP modifiers among those analyzed. The material consisted of data of ethnically homogeneous group 355 men (32–87 yrs), invited to the study as part of the Wroclaw Male Study research project. The analyzed features included socioeconomic status (age, educational level), elements of lifestyle (physical activity), major and most important stressful life events—Social Readjustment Rating Scale (SRRS) and basic parameters of the somatic structure of the body (BMI, BFP). Statistical analyses included: chi-square test, Mann–Whitney U test and backward stepwise regression (significance level α = 0.05). Stress exposure showed significant socioeconomic variation among the adult Poles studied. Higher levels of education were associated with higher levels of stress. Significant correlations between SRRS and physical activity were found, especially in men older than 60 years and with higher levels of education. A positive relationship was shown between SRRS and BFP, especially in men under 60 years of age. BFP appeared to depend mainly on age and stress. The main determinants of SRRS were age and education level, while BFP turned out to be more sensitive to stress than BMI. The modifying force of physical activity for SRRS appears to be age dependent.
Management scholars' understanding of occupational stress and coping is predominantly based on experiences of workers in standard employment relationships with organizations. Interviewing 64 app-based taxi drivers in Tehran, we examined stressors and coping strategies embedded in a growing occupational context—low-skilled app-based jobs—in an understudied non-Western developing Islamic country. Our findings revealed six stressors embedded in our participants' occupational and country contexts. The drivers coped with these stressors with six strategies that comprised (a) hiding their job, (b) adjusting at work, (c) rationalizing, (d) self-sacrificing, (e) trusting God, and (f) looking for another job. Our paper responds to the call for contextual and international perspectives in careers research, and informs career scholars and practitioners interested in examining and addressing the needs of similar groups of workers in similar occupational and country contexts.
As the COVID-19 pandemic underscores, disparities in stress exposure, vulnerability, and protective resources are often magnified in times of rapid change. I argue that Leonard Pearlin’s integration of life course and stress process frameworks constitutes a useful model for advancing a research agenda on the stressors and corollary mental health impacts of the social disruptions and dislocations defining life in the early twenty-first century. Social changes interrupt life paths and produce potentially stressful circumstances at particular time points in biographies already defined, shaped, and constrained at the intersections of race, class, nativity, age, and gender. Critical for both science and policy development is a mental health research agenda on the nature and consequences of the uneven stresses of social changes as they play out at different life course stages in disparate ways depending on people’s intersecting social locations.
The purpose of this study is to understand the relationship between family structure and maternal depressive symptoms (MDS) in Australia, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Family structures that involve transitions across life's course, such as divorce, can alter access to resources and introduce new stressors into family systems. Using the stress process model, we examine the links between family structure, stress, resources, and MDS. Using nationally representative data from Australia, the United Kingdom, and the United States and cross-sectional models for each country, we find that family structure may influence MDS differently in the UK than it does in Australia or, especially, the US. Specifically, mothers in the UK who either enter or leave a marriage after the birth of their child experience increased levels of MDS compared with mothers who do not experience a similar transition. These findings demonstrate that the effects of family structure transitions across life's course may vary according to the country context as well as to the mother's access to resources and exposure to stress. Considering that the effects of family structure transitions are not universal, this indicates that greater attention should be paid to the country contexts families exist in and the effects that public policies and social safety nets can have on MDS.
Background and Objectives
Framed within the life course perspective and the neighborhood stress model, this study investigated the association between perceptions of childhood neighborhood social cohesion and cognitive function among middle-aged and older Chinese adults. We also examined whether gender, childhood hukou status, the Chinese national administrative household registration system, and birth cohort moderated the association.
Research Design and Methods
This study used three waves of nationally representative data from the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study (2011-2015; N=11,469). Cognitive function was measured with the Telephone Interview for Cognition Status instrument. Two-level multilevel modeling was employed to address the research questions.
Results
A higher overall level of childhood neighborhood social cohesion was associated with a higher baseline level of cognitive function (b=0.26, p<.001) and a slower rate of cognitive decline (b=0.10, p=.010). Birth cohort membership moderated the linkage between childhood neighborhood social cohesion and the level of cognitive function (b=0.35, p<.001) and cognitive decline (b=0.19, p=014). Gender and childhood hukou status did not moderate these associations.
Discussion and Implications
These findings underscored the long-term ramifications of childhood conditions for later-life cognitive function. Social cohesion at the neighborhood level during childhood may be a factor that promotes healthy cognitive aging.
Utilizing data from the China Education Panel Survey, we investigated the effects of parental migration and its duration on children’s mental health in rural China. We obtained a sample of 3830 rural children, comprising 2769 children who lived with both parents, 512 children whose one parent had migrated, and 549 children whose both parents had migrated. The results of multiple regression and propensity score matching showed that absence of both parents was negatively correlated to children’s mental health, with the migration of one parent having little effect. The negative effects related to parental labor migration became more apparent when we considered the duration of parents’ migration. Compared with children whose parents were not absent, children who had been left behind for less than one year and those who had been left behind for more than one year both displayed poorer mental health. These findings urge us to infer that family arrangements have an important influence on children’s psychological health. The findings also showed girls’ mental health more likely to be affected than that of boys, which implied a gender difference in the impacts of parental migration. Research and policy implications are discussed.
Although a considerable body of research has documented the association between victimization experience and adolescent mental health, previous studies have not investigated the mediating effects of personality characteristics such as social competence and self-mastery on the associations between cyberbullying victimization and mental health. This study aims to fill in this research gap. Random group sampling based on grade was employed, and a total of 607 adolescents (51.07% females, M age = 15.04) were recruited to participate in the study. The findings of the present study partially supported the hypotheses. Specifically, the results showed that cyberbullying victimization was positively associated with social anxiety and depression. Self-mastery was found to mediate the relationship between cyberbullying victimization and symptoms of depression and social anxiety. Social competence was found to be negatively related to social anxiety, but no mediating effect was found between cyberbullying victimization and symptoms of mental health. Theoretical and practical implications were discussed.
The health consequences of gentrification are little-understood, and researchers have called for qualitative studies to uncover potential causal pathways between gentrification and health. Resident Researchers in a Participatory Action Research study of community health in nine gentrifying neighborhoods across the Boston area hypothesized that financial insecurity is one pathway through which gentrification might harm health. We analyze qualitative data from semi-structured interviews with 40 financially vulnerable respondents to understand how the experience of living in a gentrifying neighborhood produces feelings of financial insecurity, and how such feelings may be harmful to health. Results indicate that experiencing gentrification exacerbates respondents’ sense of exposure to financial risk, while simultaneously reducing the perceived efficacy of available buffers against financial risks. The threats to an individual’s financial security introduced by gentrification-related changes in the neighborhood environment are stressful because they are appraised as taxing and exceeding the coping resources available to individuals. This gentrification-related financial insecurity is a meso-level phenomenon, produced by interactions between respondents and the contexts in which they live, with uncertain and uneven outcomes. Based on our findings, we argue that feelings of financial insecurity are one pathway through which the experience of living in a gentrifying neighborhood shapes health.
Neighborhoods' structural conditions are consequential for their social circumstances and residents' well-being. Neighborhood effects might be accentuated among older residents because their daily activities and social lives are more confined to their immediate communities. This study examines how changing neighborhood socioeconomic disadvantage affects older residents' depression and stress, as well as perceptions of neighborhood context. This study employed waves 2 (2010-2011) and 3 (2015-2016) of the National Social Life, Health, and Aging Project survey (N = 2357) and fixed-effects linear regression models to study these relationships. While rising neighborhood socioeconomic disadvantage was associated with more depression and stress, it was negatively associated with overall neighborhood social capital and neighborhood social cohesion, and was only associated with lower perceptions of neighborhood safety among respondents who relocated to new neighborhoods. Beyond cross-sectional associations, changing neighborhood socioeconomic disadvantage is associated with changes in mental health and perceptions of neighborhood social context.
Settels, Jason. “Multiple vulnerabilities: The effects of neighborhood structural changes upon older residents’ mental health and perceptions of the broader community.” Journal of Community Psychology:1-19.
en Our study addresses whether working parents with young children living in childcare deserts experience greater work‐family conflict and psychological distress compared to those in more resourced areas. We use 2011 individual‐level data from Toronto matched to census and administrative childcare data. Results suggest that mothers experience greater conflict than fathers when in high‐resourced areas. Fathers who work long hours and reside in a desert report greater psychological distress than fathers in nondeserts. These patterns are contrary to the observed results for mothers’ distress by childcare availability. Our study underscores the impact of childcare options and the importance of access for all.
Résumé
es Notre étude examine si les parents qui travaillent avec de jeunes enfants vivant dans des « déserts de garde d'enfants» éprouvent plus de conflits travail‐famille et de détresse psychologique, par rapport à ceux vivant dans des régions avec plus de ressources. Nous utilisons les données individuelles de 2011 de Toronto appariées aux données du recensement et des services administratifs de garde d'enfants. Les résultats suggèrent que les mères vivent plus de conflits que les pères lorsqu'elles sont dans une région disposant de ressources plus importantes. Les pères qui travaillent de longues heures et résident dans un «désert de garde d'enfants» rapportent plus de détresse psychologique que les autres pères. Ces tendances sont contraires aux résultats observés pour les mères. Notre étude met en évidence l'impact des options de garde d'enfants et l'importance de l'accès pour tous.
Loneliness is a severe risk factor that has been linked to diminished health outcomes and low quality of life across ages. Young adults have been identified as a high-risk group for experiencing loneliness, but only a few studies have explored the economic and social determinants of loneliness in this age group. Taking a social inequality approach to health, with loneliness as a focus, this study examined: (a) the associations between the following factors - subjective social status (SSS) indicators (perceived poverty and perceived income adequacy), offline and online social capital, and neighbourhood capital - and loneliness; and (2) whether social and neighbourhood capital were moderators in the association between SSS and loneliness. Cross-sectional data for individuals aged 20-29 were taken from the 2017 Israeli Social Survey (N = 1,508). Employing multinomial logit models, we found that perceived poverty was a strong predictor of loneliness. Greater social and neighbourhood capital decreased loneliness, whereas a higher use of online social networks increased loneliness. Neighbourhood capital and perceived trust were moderators, whereas trust was a resilience factor, neighbourhood capital strengthened the negative effect of perceived poverty on loneliness. To reduce the prevalence of loneliness in young adults, policymakers should examine various means of enhancing social and neighbourhood capital along with moderating the use of online social networks. However, they should be aware that interventions of this kind can do little to buffer the strong effect of perceived poverty on loneliness, as in most cases the effect of perceived poverty on the probability of loneliness is not ameliorated by improved social or neighbourhood resources.
Emerging adulthood is a critical period of life that entails many life transitions in living arrangements, relationships, education and employment, which can generate stress and psychological distress in the emerging adult. The aim of the present study was to assess the relevance of stress, coping styles, self-esteem and perceived social support in the distress of emerging adult women and men. The sample consists of 4816 people (50% females) from the Spanish general population, ranging in age from 18 to 29 years old. All participants were assessed through questionnaires and scales that assess psychological distress, stress, coping styles, self-esteem and social support. Women scored higher than men in psychological distress, chronic stress, minor daily hassles, emotional coping style and social support, whereas men scored higher than women in rational and detachment coping styles and in self-esteem. Psychological distress was significantly predicted in women and men by high emotional coping style, lower self-esteem, high number of life events, and less social support. Another statistically significant predictor in men was less detachment coping style, whereas in women it was high chronic stress. The results of this research are relevant to healthcare professionals interested in improving the mental health of the emerging adult.
Objective
We expand upon family stress models, highlighting how stressors are structured by broader contexts of social inequality, to understand how criminal justice contact is associated with family functioning.
Background
We draw attention to two stages of existing family stress models. First, exposure to family stressors is differential, based on status positions within the social structure. Second, stressors influence families via two types of stress proliferation—from one individual to the family unit and from primary to secondary stressors—that are both shaped by social inequality.
Method
To empirically illustrate this framework, we use data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study (N = 4,074) to provide the first systematic examination of the relationship between one commonly experienced stressor, parental arrest, and family life.
Results
The findings document the differential social patterning of mothers' and fathers' arrest for families. Mothers' recent arrest (but not fathers' recent arrest) is a primary familial stressor, with these associations concentrated among partnerships that were residential (rather than nonresidential) prior to arrest. Mothers' arrest engenders the secondary stressor of material hardship, and together the primary and secondary stressors are associated with increased relationship dissolution, decreased relationship quality, and decreased coparenting.
Conclusions
By highlighting unequal exposure to stressors and differential consequences of stressors, we suggest that the family stress model can explain inequality between families.
This report introduces the COVID-19 Family Environment Scale (CHES), which aims to measure the impact of social distancing due to COVID-19 on household conflict and cohesion. Existing measures do not capture household experiences relevant to the pandemic, in which families are largely confined to their homes while sharing a life-threatening situation. Using best practice guidelines, we developed a pool of items and revised them with review by a panel of experts, and cognitive interviewing with community respondents. We administered the CHES by online survey to 3,965 adults. The CHES consists of 15 items for each of two subscales, household conflict (α = .847) and household cohesion (α = .887). Exploratory factor analysis yielded two factors, corresponding to the intended conflict and cohesion items, which accounted for 29% of variance. Confirmatory factor analysis partially supported the 2-factor model (RMSEA = .057; CFI = .729, TLI = .708, and SRMR = .098). The CHES also contains 25 optional items to describe respondent and household characteristics, and household-level COVID-19 exposure. The CHES, publicly available at https://elcentro.sonhs.miami.edu/research/measures-library/covid-19/index.html, provides a tool for measuring the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on important determinants of resilience in the face of major stressful events. Further work is needed to address the factor structure and establish validity of the CHES.
Paternal involvement in instrumental and emotional parenting behaviours benefits families and children. While fathers have become more involved in childrearing over the past several decades, significant variability in paternal involvement with children remains. Yet, little work has focused on the facilitators and barriers to involved fathering and work in the Canadian context is particularly sparse. This study focuses on one potentially important factor, depressive symptoms, and its relationship with multiple dimensions of father involvement among Canadian men. Using national quantitative data from the Survey of Canadian Fathers-Enquête des Pères Canadiens (n = 2,099) and ordinary least squares regression models, we focus on the relationship between depressive symptoms and six measures of fathering behavior. Results indicate that depression is significantly associated with most behaviours, but these results diverge from studies in other countries and contexts. Overall, our findings underscore the importance of context-specific studies on parenting and the need for additional work on fathering and mental health in Canada.
The foundational theoretical model for this volume is the vulnerability framework by Schröder-Butterfill and Marianti, which proposes a definition of coping focused on the mobilization of resources such as social networks and formal structures of social protection. However, understanding the processes that lead to the subjective vulnerability outcomes of economic strain or stress requires us to turn to socio-psychological models. Leonard Pearlin’s stress process model is used as a heuristic instrument to outline our understanding of what happens between the incident of the threat and the bad outcome, allowing to integrate the three measurement angles – objective, self-assessed and perceived – into a single model. It explains why some individuals with a similar endowment of resources experience different levels of economic strain and why not all those who are experiencing strain are equally stressed about it. In Pearlin’s model some aspects of coping are impossible to separate from the actual activity of appraisal, which is at the core of our research question. For the sake of disentangling the two in our own research, we turn to Richard Lazarus’ theory of appraisal before outlining our final theoretical framework based on the stress process model. The chapter ends with the conclusion of the first part ‘Theoretical Framework’ of this volume.
Understanding social aspects of parental well‐being is vital because parents' welfare has implications not only for the parents themselves but also for child development, fertility, and the overall health of a society. This article provides a critical review of scholarship on parenthood and well‐being in advanced economies published from 2010 to 2019. It focuses on the role of social, economic, cultural, and institutional contexts of parenting in influencing adult well‐being. The authors identify major themes, achievements, and challenges and organize the review around the demands‐rewards perspective and two other theoretical frameworks: the stress process model and the life course perspective. The analysis shows that rising economic insecurities and inequalities and a diffusion of intensive parenting ideology were major social contexts of parenting in the 2010s. Scholarship linking parenting contexts and parental well‐being illuminated how stressors related to providing and caring for children could unjustly burden some parents, especially mothers, those with fewer socioeconomic resources, and those with marginalized statuses. In that vein, researchers continued to emphasize how stressors diverged by parents' socioeconomic status, gender, and partnership status, with new attention to strains experienced by racial/ethnic minority, immigrant, and sexual minority parents. Scholars' comparisons of parents' positions in various countries expanded, enhancing knowledge regarding specific policy supports that allow parents to thrive. Articulating future research within a stress process model framework, the authors show vibrant theoretical pathways, including conceptualizing potential parental social supports at multiple levels, attending to the intersection of multiple social locations of parents, and renewing attention to local contextual factors and parenting life stages.
It has been well‐established that neighborhood disorder and disadvantage are detrimental to mental health and psychological well‐being. There has been growing research interest in minority stress issues, however, less is known about how perceived neighborhood disorder matters for psychological well‐being among Latino adults in the United States. Analyzing data from National Latino Asian American Study, 2002–2003, the present study investigates the relationships among perceived neighborhood disorder, spousal/partner relationships (i.e., spousal/partner strain and support), and psychological distress. The findings indicated that perceived neighborhood disorder and spousal/partner strain were positively associated with increased psychological distress, whereas spousal/partner support had no protective effect against psychological distress. Moreover, mediation analysis showed that the association between perceived neighborhood disorder and psychological distress was partially mediated by spousal/partner strain (i.e., 15.13%), not spousal support. Finally, moderation analysis revealed that the presence of spousal/partner strain exacerbated the relationship between perceived neighborhood disorder and psychological distress. Conversely, the absence of spousal/partner strain appeared to buffer the adverse impact of neighborhood disorder on psychological distress. These findings highlighted the ill effect of problematic neighborhood environments on the quality of the spousal/partner relationship and subsequently Latino's psychological well‐being.
Motherhood represents a valued status in American culture especially for biological mothers within stable first-marriages. Focusing on partnered women, this study examined how and why mental health differed across three motherhood statuses: biological-only, step-only, and double mothers (i.e., both biological and step). Using data from the National Survey of Fertility Barriers (NSFB), we found lower life satisfaction among step-only and double mothers compared to biological-only mothers. More economic hardship, lower quality romantic relationships, and higher rates of cohabitation fully explained the differences between biological-only and double mothers in life satisfaction. Differences between biological-only and step-only mothers are partially explained by self-esteem and cohabitation. Double mothers also reported higher psychological distress than biological-only mothers. This difference is partially explained by lower romantic relationship quality and more economic hardship among double mothers. We found no differences in psychological distress between step-only and biological-only mothers.
Background
There is a substantial gap in health and longevity between more affluent and more deprived areas, and more knowledge of the determinants of this health divide is required. Experience of the local residential environment is important for health although few studies have examined this in relation to biological markers of age such as telomere length. We sought to examine if residents’ perceptions of neighbourhood stressors over time were associated with telomere length in a community study.
Methodology/Principal findings
In a prospective cohort study of 2186 adults in the West of Scotland, we measured neighbourhood stressors at three time points over a 12-year period and telomere length at the end of the study. Using linear regression models, we found that a higher accumulation of neighbourhood stressors over time was associated with shorter telomere length, even after taking cohort, social class, health behaviours (smoking status, diet, physical activity), BMI and depression into account among females only (Beta = 0.007; 95%CI [0.001, 0.012]; P<0.014).
Conclusions/Significance
Neighborhood environments are potentially modifiable, and future efforts directed towards improving deleterious local environments may be useful to lessen telomere attrition.
We examined whether social support from family and friends, separately, reduces the deleterious effect of neighborhood stressors on psychological distress among Latinos by subgroup. Utilizing data from a nationally representative sample of 2,524 Latinos (National Latino and Asian American Survey), we found that neighborhood stressors were associated with higher distress among people with low and average levels of family support, while there was no significant association between neighborhood stressors and distress among those with high levels of family support. Although both family and friend support reduced the deleterious mental health impact of neighborhood stressors, when mutually adjusted, only family support remained statistically significant as a stress buffer, and only for Mexicans and Cubans.
We have previously reported on the findings of a critical realist concurrent triangulated mixed method multilevel study that sought to identify and explain complex perinatal contextual social and psychosocial mechanisms that may influence the developmental origins of health and disease. That study used both emergent and construction phases of a realist explanatory theory building method. The purpose of this article is to present the thesis, theoretical framework, propositions, and models explaining neighborhood context, stress, depression, and the developmental origins of health and disease. The analysis draws on an extensive extant literature; intensive (qualitative), extensive (quantitative), and multilevel studies used for phenomena detection, description, and emergent phase theory development; and the abductive and retroductive analysis undertaken for the theory construction phase. Global, economic, social, and cultural mechanisms were identified that explain maternal stress and depression within family and neighborhood contexts. There is a complex intertwining of historical, spatial, cultural, material, and relational elements that contribute to the experiences of loss and nurturing. Emerging is the centrality of social isolation and “expectation lost” as possible triggers of stress and depression not only for mothers but possibly also for others who have their dreams shattered during life’s transitions. The thesis: In the neighborhood spatial context, in keeping with critical realist ontology, global-economic, social, and cultural-level generative powers trigger and condition maternal, psychological, and biological-level stress mechanisms, resulting in the phenomenon of maternal depression and alteration of the infants’ developmental trajectory.
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