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Most studies of the health consequences of unemployment ignore the economic context within which job loss occurs. Using data from a subset (N = 1,252) of a national probability sample, this paper compares the effects of current and previous unemployment on depression and subjective physical health status across levels of educational attainment and local job availability. Results show that current unemployment effects among the previously unemployed are strongest in low unemployment areas, particularly among individuals with a college-level education. These findings are interpreted in terms of the two categories of unemployment-related stress most frequently identified in the literature: financial strain, which is thought to be more salient for people in lower socioeconomic statuses, and damage to sense of self, which may primarily characterize higher status victims of job loss. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reports a study of the premedical student culture at a major university, based on fieldwork and interviews with 30 premedical students. The paper examines the role of stereotypes in the premedical culture; specifically, the common belief in "cut-throats" among premedical students. Cut-throats are described as excessively competitive, selfish, gradehungry students who cheat, steal books and lab reports, and sabotage lab experiments. Despite the widespread belief, our findings suggest cut-throats are a myth. We found more evidence for cooperative than cut-throat behavior. The myth emerges from the competitive and pressured situation of premedical students and the uncertainty of the medical school admission process, and is in part a manifestation of students' collective anxiety. More significantly, it provides cultural explanations for failure and success for premedical students. We discuss its connection to the general premedical stereotype and its relation to pre-medical education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the association between psychological distress and persons' perceptions of their physical well-being. Associations between psychological distress and ratings of health status within four diverse data sets are examined, controlling for physical health status as well as for sociodemographic variables. The results indicate that, despite variation in the characteristics of the populations under study, the mode of data collection employed, and the specific questions used to measure psychological distress, distress remains a statistically significant correlate of perceived health status. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article we discuss the social position of the black middle class and two forms of work stress that appear unique to this group: token stress and social rejection. We outline a research agenda for studying: (1) the relationship between these stressors and mental health in the context of the work environment, and (2) the type of strategies that appear especially efficacious (or problematic) with regard to these problems. We begin the paper with a contextual discussion of the black middle class. We then offer a set of theoretical predictions about the relationship between work stress and mental health among middle class African Americans. We conclude the article with recommendations for future research, and we identify the implications of the research agenda for social policy efforts to diversify the workplace. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper I argue that a fruitful discussion of the choice of outcomes in the sociological study of the social antecedents of mental health problems would benefit from a consideration of the goals that we are trying to achieve. The most clearly articulated goal is that of uncovering those aspects of society that produce harm. I examine the premises of the current conceptual framework--the stress paradigm--in light of its ability to fulfill this goal, and I discuss the implications for the types of outcome measures we use. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mental health generally and depression in particular have been repeatedly shown to vary in relation to gender, socioeconomic status, marital status, and age. These status differences may be linked to mental health because they tend to define important differences in stress exposure and in the availability of coping resources. This paper examines the capacity of the stress-process model to account for the social distribution of depression. We employ mediation analyses using data from a 1990-1991 survey of Toronto community residents. In general, we found hypothesized risk factors to vary across these statuses with depressive symptoms and disorder and the distribution of protective factors to vary inversely. Results indicate that the model as expressed in our analyses accounts for a substantial minority of observed depression differences across individuals and for a considerable portion of reliably observed variation across social statuses. Our findings with respect to major depressive disorder parallel those for depressive symptomatology. Most compelling is the nearly total explanation of the socioeconomic status association with depressive symptoms and the substantial contribution toward explaining the socioeconomic status-disorder relationship when stress process mediators are accounted for. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The relationship between marriage and positive mental health is one of the most established findings in the stress literature. Few studies, however, examine the problematic as well as the supportive impacts of marriage on mental health. This paper uses a cohort of young adults who were sampled at 18, 21, or 24 years of age and resampled seven years later when they were married at 25, 28, or 31. It examines what factors are associated with the quality of marital relationships, the relative impact of and balance between negative and positive partner relationships on mental health, and sex differences in the determinants and outcomes of marital quality. The results indicate that the structural strains of parenthood and financial need and their interaction predict problematic and supportive spousal relationships and the difference in the levels of these two relationships. Problematic relationships with spouses have considerably stronger impacts than supportive relationships on depression. However, the difference between the amounts of supportive and problematic relationships with spouses has a greater impact on mental health than levels of either considered separately. Finally, relational quality has a greater impact on the mental health of wives than husbands. These findings indicate the importance of considering how marriage affects mental health in complex, rather than in straightforward, ways. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although several theoretical and methodological approaches have been developed for assessing the meaning of roles and role-related stressors, individuals' own understandings of the meaning of their role identities have been ignored in stress research. In this paper, I first examine the ways in which meaning has been conceptualized and assessed. I then explore the meanings individuals themselves attach to role identities and their implications for mental health. Qualitative analyses of in-depth follow-up interviews with 40 people who had participated in a community panel study of mental health reveal considerable variation in the meanings they attach to spouse, parent, and worker identities. I also find that the meanings people assign to role identities are based on their perceptions of the benefits and costs of role involvement. Moreover, while most meanings are shared by men and women, there are gender differences in some meanings which reflect gender differences in the perceived benefits and costs of role involvement. Finally, quantitative analyses show that some meanings of role identities are associated with symptoms and are involved in gender differences in distress. These and other illustrative findings suggest that stress researchers would find it useful to incorporate the meanings individuals themselves attach to their role identities and devote greater attention to men's and women's perceptions of both the positive and negative aspects of their role involvement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The stress process paradigm is one of the most widely held perspectives in the sociology of mental health. While this model has been applied to a large number of research problems, relatively little work has examined whether the paradigm can assist in understanding the link between socially induced stressors and their consequences for the mental health of immigrants. In this paper, we employ a stress process formulation to examine the interplay among stressors, psychological and social resources, and psychological distress among a large sample of Korean immigrants living in Toronto, Canada. Data from a longitudinal study of over 600 respondents indicate that the stress process paradigm provides a useful perspective for understanding how chronic stressors associated with the immigration experience manifest themselves in psychological distress. Our results suggest that social and psychological resources have important deterrent effects on the experience of stressors and their subsequent distressful consequences. Ethnic social support and mastery are especially important factors in this process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the past decade, a body of research has developed which purports to show that the well-established relationship between race and psychological distress is duc entirely to social class. In our paper we demonstrate that this view is incorrect: Most prior research has assumed that the effects of race and social class are additive; our analysis shows that they are actually interactive. The form of interaction is such that thc true effect of race is suppressed and tire true effect of social class is magnified in a model that fails to take the interaction into consideration. An analysis of eight different epidemiologic surveys documents this result and shows that race differences in psychological distress are particularly pronounced among people with low incomes. On the basis of this result we call for renewed interest in the effect of race on mental health. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Previous studies of the effect of war on men's life have focused primarily on the effects of combat exposure. However, reliance on combat exposure, defined in the traditional sense, us the sole indicator of war trauma ignores aspects of the phenomeno, present in the Vietnam conflict. In this paper, we develop and test a model of war trauma that contains three elements: (1) combat experience. (2) witnessing abusive violence, and (3) participation in abusive violence. Using a sample of 350 Vietnam veterans, we apply a hierarchical regression analysis to scales of psychiatric symptomatology to test this model. The findings confirm that each of the three elements of war trauma affects postservice psychological states of veterans in significant and different ways. Furthermore, exposure to abusive violence is found to have significantly different effects for black and white veterans. Qualitative material from transcripts is used to explore the meaning of the different pattern of findings for these groups. The findings emphasize the importance of specifying what constitutes "the experience" when attempting to link traumatic experiences to subsequent psychological patterns. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Geographic and social mobility are important sources of life change for the majority of people in the modern world. On the assumption that such social transitions are potentially stressful, researchers have investigated the relationship between mobility and psychiatric disturbance. Results from these studies are inconsistent and sometimes contradictory, often due to conceptual and methodological differences. This study offers new evidence on this issue. Interviews were conducted with 681 adults residing in a large Colombian city. Analysis focuses on relationships between geographic and social mobility and manifestations of psychiatric symptoms, but also includes consideration of the effects of age, sex, and education. Results indicate significantly higher symptom scores for females and persons with lower educational attainment as well as certain types of social mobility experience. Variations by age and migration experience are minimal. This study casts some doubt about the stressful effects of migration, tends to support the notion that social mobility is related to psychiatric disturbance and, above all, shows that sex and education are factors that override the influence of either type of mobility experience. The paper concludes with the suggestion that these findings can be utilized for purposes of primary prevention and an indication of lines along which future research should be organized. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article provides an overview of research on race-related stressors that can affect the mental health of socially disadvantaged racial and ethnic populations. It begins by reviewing the research on self-reported discrimination and mental health. Although discrimination is the most studied aspect of racism, racism can also affect mental health through structural/institutional mechanisms and racism that is deeply embedded in the larger culture. Key priorities for research include more systematic attention to stress proliferation processes due to institutional racism, the assessment of stressful experiences linked to natural or manmade environmental crises, documenting and understanding the health effects of hostility against immigrants and people of color, cataloguing and quantifying protective resources, and enhancing our understanding of the complex association between physical and mental health. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Close relationships are a resource for mental and physical health that, like other social resources, is unequally distributed in the population. This article focuses on racial disparities in the loss of relationships across the life course. Racial disparities in life expectancy in the United States mean that black Americans experience the deaths of more friends and family members than do white Americans from childhood through later life. I argue that these losses are a unique type of stress and adversity that, through interconnected biopsychosocial pathways, contribute to disadvantage in health over the life course. I focus particularly on how the interconnected pathways associated with loss undermine opportunities for and increase risks to social ties throughout life, adding to disadvantage in health. I call on social scientists and policy makers to draw greater attention to this unique source of disadvantage for black children, adults, and families. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Few studies have examined the associations between health and the cross-border ties that migrants maintain with their family members in communities of origin. We draw on theory related to social ties, ethnic identity, and mental health to examine cross-border ties as potential moderators of the association between migration-related stress and psychological distress among Latino migrants. Using data from the National Latino and Asian American Survey, we find that remittance sending is associated with significantly lower levels of psychological distress for Cuban migrants, and difficulty visiting home is associated with significantly greater psychological distress for Puerto Rican migrants. There were significant associations between migration-related stressors and psychological distress, although these associations fell to nonsignificance after accounting for multiple testing. We found little evidence that cross-border ties either buffer or exacerbate the association between migration-related stressors and psychological distress. We consider the findings within the current political and historical context of cross-border ties and separation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using data from a 2005 national survey of working adults in the United States, we examine the effects of the gender composition of the superordinate-subordinate role-set on mental and physical health measures. Subordinates' and superordinates' genders are important determinants. Men who work in gender-mixed superordinate contexts (i.e., with one male and one female superior) report lower levels of distress and physical symptoms than men who work with one male superior. Women who work with one male superior report less distress and fewer physical symptoms compared to women who work with one female superior or in gender-mixed superordinate contexts. With a few exceptions, these observations generally hold net of occupation, job sector, and an array of work-related conditions. We discuss the implications of these findings in light of predictions derived from the similarity-attraction and role congruity theories. We also outline ways that theoretical development in relational demography can be refined by a more specific focus on the demographic characteristics--especially gender--of the superordinate-subordinate role-set. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The sociology of stress shows how nondisordered people often become distressed in contexts such as chronic subordination; the losses of status, resources, and attachments; or the inability to achieve valued goals. Evolutionary psychology indicates that distress arising in these contexts stems from psychological mechanisms that are responding appropriately to stressful circumstances. A diagnosis of mental disorder, in contrast, indicates that these mechanisms are not functioning as they are designed to function. The American Psychiatric Association's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, however, has come to treat both the natural results of the stress process and individual pathology as mental disorders. A number of social groups benefit from and promote the conflation of normal emotions with dysfunctions. The result has been to overestimate the number of people who are considered to be disordered, to focus social policy on the supposedly unmet need for treatment, and to enlarge the social space of pathology in the general culture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Stress researchers have typically controlled for the role of personal agency, or self-selection, in the stress process, rather than examining it. People in better mental health (those with high levels of coping resources and low levels of distress or disorder) should be more likely to exercise agency. Such individuals should, through problem-solving efforts and purposeful acts, experience fewer negative controllable events and more positive controllable events in their lives and be able to transform or compensate for stressors that they cannot avoid or eliminate. These agentic processes may account for the stress-buffering effects of coping resources; and, because coping resources are unequally distributed by social status, these processes should further help to explain how status differences in mental health are maintained and amplified over time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We hypothesize that divorce immediately increases psychological distress and has long-term negative consequences for the physical health of divorced people. In addition, we hypothesize that divorce indirectly causes long-term increases in distress through stressful midlife events. The hypotheses are tested using data from 416 rural Iowa women who were interviewed repeatedly in the early 1990s when they were mothers of adolescent children; the women were interviewed again in 2001. The data support the hypotheses. In the years immediately after their divorce (1991-1994), divorced women reported significantly higher levels ofpsychological distress than married women but no differences in physical illness. A decade later (in 2001), the divorced women reported significantly higher levels of illness, even after controlling for age, remarriage, education, income, and prior health. Compared to their married counterparts, divorced women reported higher levels of stressful life events between 1994 and 2000, which led to higher levels of depressive symptoms in 2001. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The existence, nature, and strength of race differences in mental health remain unclear after several decades of research. In this 'research, we examine black-white differences in the relationship between acute stressors and depressive symptoms. We reframe the stress exposure and differential vulnerability hypotheses in the context of long-term trajectories of stress and depression, and we hypothesize that trajectories of stress growth will be associated with trajectories of depressive symptom growth. Using latent growth curve analysis of a sample of 1,972 older persons interviewed three times at three-year intervals, we test the hypotheses that (1) growth in exposure to loss-related events will predict growth in depressive symptoms, and (2) African Americans will experience greater stress growth than whites. Results support the hypotheses. Stress growth exhibited a linear increase for blacks but not for whites, and predicted depression growth for both races, but explained more variance for blacks than for whites. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using two waves of panel data from Americans' Changing Lives (House 1995) (N = 2, 681), we examine the relationships between volunteer work in the community and six aspects of personal well-being: happiness, life satisfaction, self-esteem, sense of control over life, physical health, and depression. Prior research has more often examined the effects of voluntary memberships than of volunteer work, has used cross-sectional rather than longitudinal data, and, when longitudinal, has emphasized social causation over selection effects. Focusing only on the consequences of volunteer work overlooks the antecedents of human agency. People with greater personality resources and better physical and mental health should be more likely to seek (or to be sought for) community service. Hence, we examine both selection and social causation effects. Results show that volunteer work indeed enhances all six aspects of well-being and, conversely, people who have greater well-being invest more hours in volunteer service. Given this, further understanding of self- versus social-selection processes seems an important next step. Do positive, healthy people actively seek out volunteer opportunities, or do organizations actively recruit individuals of these types (or both)? Explaining how positive consequences flow from volunteer service may offer a useful counterpoint to stress theory, which has focused primarily on negative life experiences and their sequelae. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The survey data presented here are on the national prevalences of major lifetime perceived discrimination and day-to-day perceived discrimination; the associations between perceived discrimination and mental health; and the extent to which differential exposure and differential emotional reactivity to perceived discrimination account for the well-known associations between disadvantaged social status and mental health. Although more prevalent among people with disadvantaged social status, results show that perceived discrimination is common in the total population, with 33.5 percent of respondents in the total sample reporting exposure to major lifetime discrimination and 60.9 percent reporting exposure to day-to-day discrimination. The associations of perceived discrimination with mental health are comparable in magnitude to those of other more commonly studied stressors, and these associations do not vary consistently across subsamples defined on the basis of social status. Even though perceived discrimination explains only a small part of the observed associations between disadvantaged social status and mental health, given its high prevalence, wide distribution, and strong associations with mental health, perceived discrimination needs to be treated much more seriously than in the past in future studies of stress and mental health. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Stress is a common experience in modern society, and it can affect both physical and mental health. Recognizing that not all stress is detrimental to health, this research examines the relationship between perceptions of distress and perceived health within a longitudinal framework. Using two waves of a nationally representative panel study, the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey I (NHANES I), structural equation modeling revealed that distress leads to more negative health perceptions. In addition, perceived health was found to impact distress levels at the following wave suggesting a cycle of decline between distress and perceived health. Finally, perceived health was found to have predictive validity in determining future functional disability even when considering distress. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Processes of stress proliferation are explored in a Sample of informal caregivers to people with AIDS. Proliferation refers to the tendency for stressors to beget stressors. Two forms of proliferation are explored, each based on the distinction between primary and secondary stressors. Among AIDS caregivers, primary stressors are the hardships rooted in the caregiving role. Secondary stressors result from primary stressors, but arise in roles and activities outside of caregiving. One form of proliferation is the expansion of primary stressors, reflected in an increase in role overload and a growing sense of being a captive of the caregiver role. Expansion is largely driven by the course of AIDS and the elevation of demands it places on the caregiver. The second form of proliferation is the surfacing of secondary stressors in social and leisure life and in the occupational realm. This form arises from the strains imposed by the emerging caregiver role on the other roles and activities of the caregiver. It is proposed that the systematic assessment of proliferated stressors can help illuminate the dynamic connections between stress and health. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

I review existing knowledge, unanswered questions, and new directions in research on stress, coping resource, coping strategies, and social support processes. New directions in research on stressors include examining the differing impacts of stress across a range of physical and mental health outcomes, the "carry-overs" of stress from one role domain or stage of life into another, the benefits derived from negative experiences, and the determinants of the meaning of stressors. Although a sense of personal control and perceived social support influence health and mental health both directly and as stress buffers, the theoretical mechanisms through which they do so still require elaboration and testing. New work suggests that coping flexibility and structural constraints on individuals' coping efforts may be important to pursue. Promising new directions in social support research include studies of the negative effects of social relationships and of support giving, mutual coping and support-giving dynamics, optimal "matches" between individuals' needs and support received, and properties of groups which can provide a sense of social support. Qualitative comparative analysis, optimal matching analysis, and event-structure analysis are new techniques which may help advance research in these broad topic areas. To enhance the effectiveness of coping and social support interventions, intervening mechanisms need to be better understood. Nevertheless, the policy implications of stress research are clear and are important given current interest in health care reform in the United States. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study describes stress as derived from minority status and explores its effect on psychological distress in gay men. The concept of minority stress is based on the premise that gay people in a heterosexist society are subjected to chronic stress related to their stigmatization. Minority stressors were conceptualized as: internalized homophobia, which relates to gay men's direction of societal negative attitudes toward the self; stigma, which relates to expectations of rejection and discrimination; and actual experiences of discrimination and violence. The mental health effects of the three minority stressors were tested in a community sample of 741 New York City gay men. The results supported minority stress hypotheses: each of the stressors had a significant independent association with a variety of mental health measures. Odds ratios suggested that men who had high levels of minority stress were twice to three times as likely to suffer also from high levels of distress. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The longitudinal interrelationships among general drug use, psychological distress, and physical symptoms were investigated in a three wave panel study of a community sample of adolescents interviewed when they were 12, 15, and 18 years of age. Results did not provide any support for the hypothesis that adolescents use drugs in general to cope with pre-existing psychological distress and physical symptoms. In contrast, the results supported the hypothesis that general drug use contributes to physical and psychological impairments over time. However, such drug-induced psychological distress and physical symptoms only occurred in later adolescence (from ages 15 to 18), and no evidence of impairments due to general drug use or specific alcohol use was found in early adolescence (from ages 12 to 15). Psychological distress and physical symptoms influenced each other over time, and physical symptoms partially mediated longitudinal changes in psychological distress. However, general drug use did not mediate any longitudinal changes in psychological distress and physical symptoms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study contributes to the growing body of research on situational determinants of coping. Based on a general population sample of 1556 married men and women, it goes beyond previous efforts in two ways. First, it presents the first large-scale analysis of situational determinants of coping effectiveness in response to a wide variety' of stressful life events and chronic difficulties. This analysis documents that previous aggregate analyses overlooked a number of specifications which, when observed, provide insights into the mechanisms of coping effectiveness. Second, it assesses the importance of two empirically generated multivariate coping profiles, passivity and versatility. The study's findings suggest that these profiles are associated significantly with adjustment to stress, that these associations differ across situations, and that they help to interpret the effects of separate coping strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using data from a 1985 epidemiological survey of 2,115 adults in Florida, this research has two goals: it tests the proposition that race and SES jointly influence mental health, and it examines the contribution of undesirable life events and economic problems to psychological distress across SES groups. Using multiple indicators of SES and mental health, we found that the evidence for a model of joint influence of race and SES on mental health varied with the measures being used. The most general conclusion is that SES interacts with race to increase psychological symptoms of distress. Partitioning the sample into three SES categories (low, middle, high), we examined the contribution of stressors to the greater distress among lower-SES blacks compared to other blacks and lower-SES whites. Lower-SES blacks are more vulnerable than lower-SES whites to the impact of undesirable events, but they are less vulnerable than lower-SES whites to the impact of economic problems. Lower-SES blacks are more vulnerable than middle-SES blacks to the impact of both discrete events and economic problems. Limitations of the study indicate a need for future longitudinal studies with measures of coping resources and support networks to further our understanding of the race, social class and psychological distress relationship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A probability sample of 1,429 adults aged 55 and older was interviewed in their homes three times at six-month intervals. Measures of symptoms, social support, and education were obtained before measures of life-event stress. A LISREL analysis of three waves and two intervals of data yielded a goodness of fit of .989 between the data and the model. For both intervals, increases in stress led to increases in symptoms, which supported the Dohrenwend hypothesis of a normative stress reaction. This reaction typically did not persist beyond six months unless there was high stress over both intervals. Contrary to Dohrenwend's resource mediation hypothesis, social support and education did not influence either the reaction to or the recovery from stress. Symptoms were very stable over the one-year period. Overall, the results depict older adults as quite consistent and resilient. Because life events were correlated over time and were predicted by person characteristics, they should not be considered as independent of person factors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One way people cope with communitywide stressors that affect them is to get involved in activities such as attending meetings, writing letters, and circulating petitions. Path analysis was used to examine a number of factors believed to influence such community involvement. Residents (N = 99) of a rural community near Phoenix, Arizona, where a hazardous waste facility has been planned, were interviewed at home in August 1982. Strategies to change or alter the source of stress (problem-focused coping) were associated with greater community involvement. Strategies to regulate one's emotional response to stress (emotion-focused coping) were associated with less community involvement. Increased self-efficacy and sense of community led indirectly to increased community involvement through different modes of coping. A distinction is drawn between individual and community stressors, with an emphasis on viewing the individual in the context of the larger social environment when studying community stressors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

1,402 older adults were interviewed twice with a six month interval. The direct, indirect, and interactive relationships of resources, life events, global stress, and depression were examined using multiple regression procedures to isolate the unique contributions of six hypothesized functions of resources: (1) stronger resources did not reduce undesirable events; (2) stronger resources did reduce the degree to which one experienced global stress: (3) stronger resources reduced depressive symptoms; (4) strong resource persons had less global stress than weak resource persons at low levels of events, but this advantage disappeared as level of events increased (opposite of prediction); (5) the traditional buffer hypothesis was not supported; the advantage of strong resource persons over weak resource persons held at all levels of events; (6) strong resource persons had less change in depression than weak resource persons only at the higher levels of global stress. This form followed the buffer effect previously attributed to events. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Longitudinal data on 267 married couples are used to examine the interrelationships among predisposing factors, stress, moderating factors, and subsequent functioning. A model of the stress process that considers spouse symptoms and coping was estimated separately for three functioning criteria (depressed mood, physical symptoms, and alcohol consumption) and across gender groups. Predisposing factors such as low social status and poor initial functioning were related to higher levels of stress. Women were more responsive to stressors and social resources (family support) than were men. The stress-illness relationship was strengthened by the use of avoidance coping responses, particularly if both partners relied on avoidance coping. There were no stress-buffering effects of family support. The associations between self-esteem, coping responses, and later functioning depended on the partner's corresponding coping levels. These findings underscore the value of considering a significant other's symptoms and behavior as salient aspects of the stress process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examined how patterns of coping and defense, as well as their main effects, influence well-being. Using a cross-sectional survey design, questionnaire data were collected and analyzed from 207 university students facing the stress of annual examinations in India. Coping was generally and positively correlated with positive affects (such as satisfaction) whereas defense was primarily and positively correlated with somatic complaints and negative affects. Regarding patterns of coping, mobilization to take action was associated with negative affect when the coping mechanism of problem diagnosis was relatively low. When diagnosis was relatively high, mobilization was associated with either no change in affect or an improvement in it. Coping and defense, but not their combinations, buffered certain effects of poor fit on indicators of ill-being. The similarities and differences between these findings and those of other investigators suggest that coping may buffer the effects of stressors on ill-being only when stressors are subjectively controllable. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines the influence of various factors, including role responsibilities and satisfaction, on depressive mood. Various competing hypotheses concerning the factors related to depression are explored using data from a study of psychological distress in a representative sample of a midwestern community (N = 1,026). Although women reported more distress than men, the largest difference among married people was between employed married men and housewives. Employed married women experienced slightly less distress than housewives, but having minor children in the household was especially stressful for these women and counteracted the advantage of employment. The effects of children in the household on distress were strongest among working women with lower family incomes. These data support the hypothesis that the strain of working and doing the majority of the work associated with raising children increases distress among married women. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research focuses on whether or not and under what conditions menopause is likely to be a psychologically stressful event for women. This question is examined empirically using data from the nationally representative Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (HANES). Results from analyses of variance and covariance support the main hypothesis of this study. They indicate that when menopause occurs on time, that is, during midlife, it is not associated with psychological distress. When menopause occurs at earlier or later stages of the life course, however, it is apt to be a source of psychological distress. These results support other studies demonstrating that the timing of life events is an important element in their psychological impact. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study uses longitudinal data to observe how life events, chronic life strains, self concepts, coping, and social supports come together to form a process of stress. It takes involuntary job disruptions as illustrating life events and shows how they adversely affect enduring role strains, economic strains in particular. These exacerbated strains, in turn, erode positive concepts of self, such as self-esteem and mastery. The diminished self-concepts then leave one especially vulnerable to experiencing symptoms of stress, of which depression is of special interest to this analysis. The interventions of coping and social supports are mainly indirect; that is, they do not act directly to buffer depression. Instead, they minimize the elevation of depression by dampening the antecedent process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many jurisdictions require psychiatrists to assess patient "dangerousness" in the process of involuntary hospitalization. Considerable research indicates that psychiatric prediction of dangerous behavior is rather inaccurate, the principal error being one of overprediction. Inaccuracy may result, in part, from the psychiatrist's role in the health care system. The Mental Health Associate (MHA) role, not sharing some of these structural disadvantages, is hypothesized to yield more accurate predictions of patient "dangerousness." However, a follow-up study of clients originally assessed on potential dangerousness indicated that MHA predictions did not significantly differentiate between those actually manifesting- dangerous behavior and those who did not. Further investigation revealed that incidence of stress events was significantly associated with the occurrence of dangerous behavior during the follow-up period and affected the accuracy of MHA assessments. MHA predictions significantly differentiated between those manifesting dangerous behavior and those who did not when stress was low during the follow-up period, but MHA predictions for those who experienced high stress conditions were less accurate. Implications of these findings for the process of attributing dangerousness for involuntary commitment are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Two models of the relationship between life change and illness behavior are tested in a prospective study of surgical patients in six disease-operation categories. The sensitization model hypothesizes that higher levels of life change experienced prior to surgery will be related positively to the number of problems perceived by patients with their postoperative recovery. The physiological reaction model predicts that life change will be positively related to the patients' actual morbidity postoperatively. Inconsistent results were found for each model. Small effects in the direction predicted by the sensitization model were found with gastric surgery, abdominal hysterectomy and vaginal hysterectomy categories. The physiological reaction model received weak support from two categories: abdominal and vaginal hysterectomy. The remaining four categories failed to show support for the physiological reaction model. Overall, the findings are interpreted as failing to show clear support for either model. Various explanations for these negative results are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the context of a longitudinal investigation of the physical and mental health consequences of involuntary job loss, it is hypothesized that social supports modify the relationship between unemployment stress and health responses. As a result of two plant shutdowns, 100 stably employed, married men were interviewed attire stages over a two-year period. Social support was measured by a 13-item index covering the extent of supportive and affiliative relations with wife, friends and relatives. The rural unemployed evidenced a significantly higher level of social support than did the urban unemployed, a difference probably due to the strength of ethnic ties in the small community and a more concerned social milieu. No differences between the supported and unsupported were found with respect to weeks unemployed or to actual economic deprivation. However, while unemployed, the unsupported evidenced significantly higher elevations and more changes in measures of cholesterol, illness symptoms and affective response than did the supported. While health differences between supported and unsupported populations under stress are commonly interpreted as evidence that support buffers the effects of life stress, it is argued that these and other study findings demonstrate the exacerbation of life stress by a low sense of social support. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The hypothesis, suggested by associations found in previous research, that stressful gife events play a direct etiological role in psychological disorders was investigated. Preexistent methodological problems which permitted no clear inference regarding this role were treated. Competing hypotheses which posited that the life event-psychological disorder associations represented confounded relationships among events, pathology, and sociocultural factors were examined and controlled. Data used were from a survey of mothers of 732 children ranging in age from 11 to 23 years old, who constituted the follow-up sample collected five years later from an original sample of 1,034 children randomly selected from a cross-section of Manhattan households. Event scores differing as to the change and undesirability stress conceptions, each objectively and subjectively defined, were studied. No significant differences were found between correlations of event scores with behavioral pathology prior to and after the events. Multiple regression analyses which added event scores after controlling for stressful life processes demonstrated that events made no minimally meaningful contribution to the prediction of any disturbed behavior. The confounding hypothesis rather than the etiological hypothesis was supported and discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Two empirical studies link life change (change in roles and routines) to "psychological distress" as measured by Langner's 22-item Mental Health Index (Mill). Both studies find a significant curvilinear relationship between life change and MHI. Alternative explanations for the curvilinear effect are discussed. One approach is to view the relationship between life change and MHI as involving a threshold effect, the negative consequences of life change occurring only above a given level. The second view suggests that both a very large and very small amount of life change is related to adverse effects on the individual. This latter argument raises certain questions of causal direction which are not resolved. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study presents an analysis of the utilization of drugs in a long-term care facility for the elderly, which focuses on anxiety-level, sex, mental status, physical dependency, friendliness to the staff, and friendliness to other patients as factors affecting the administration of major tranquilizers. It was found that females are more likely than males to receive major tranquilizers, and females were more likely than males to be defined as anxious. However, when the anxiety-level is held constant, females are still more likely than males to receive tranquilizers. Among males, low mental status and judged unfriendliness to the staff apparently lead to the administration of tranquilizers. The relevance of these findings to the literature on sex roles and mental illness is discussed, and policy implications for drug review procedures are suggested. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Comments on the article "Status Integration, Social Stress and Mental Illness," by Walter T. Martin from the 1976 September edition of the "Journal of Health and Social Behavior" publication. Claim by Martin of accounting for the relationship between marital status and rates of admission to mental hospitals; Absence of any link between the theory and empirical issues between marital status and mental illness; Fallacy of the assumption of the dependence of interstatus role conflict in a status configuration on the number of people occupying the configuration.