Cumulative Life Stress Research Articles

Multiple Risk Factors in the Family Environment and Youth Problem Behaviors

We test three risk models (independent-additive, interactive, and exponential) to examine how multiple risk factors in the family environment-overt interparental conflict, poor parenting, and economic hardship-operate conjointly to predict youth problem behaviors. The sample includes 335 preadolescent and early adolescent youth. Findings from this study support the pattern of independent, additive effects of individual family stressors. We found no support for the idea that the effects of poor parenting, overt interparental conflict, and family economic hardship exacerbate one another, nor did the converse serve as buffers. The independent, additive model explains more variance in externalizing problem behavior for youth in nondivorced, two-parent households. Poor parenting is the strongest risk factor. Economic hardship is the only significant risk factor for youth internalizing problem behavior Key Words: economic hardship, interparental conflict, parenting, risk, youth problem behavior. Using a sample of 407 families living in rural areas of North Central Iowa, this study examines religious transmission between same-sex and cross-sex parent-child groups. The analyses focus on the mechanisms through which adolescents' perceptions of parental acceptance moderate the transmission of religious beliefs and practices. Results show that both fathers and mothers played important roles in transmitting religious beliefs and practices to their sons and daughters. Mothers' influence was stronger than fathers ' when the adolescents perceived the parent as accepting. This effect was especially strong for sons. Key Words: adolescents, perceived parental acceptance, intergenerational religious transmission. The identification of specific factors that place youth at risk for behavioral and emotional problems has concerned social scientists for years. Research efforts have culminated in findings that underscore the importance of particular life events and circumstances that predispose youth to adjustment problems. For the most part, this research focuses on the potential effects of a single life stressor (e.g., parental divorce). However, a number of researchers have broadened their outlook by exploring how multiple risk factors affect youth (e.g., Farrington, 1991; Masten et al., 1988; Rutter, 1979; Shaw & Emery, 1988; Werner & Smith, 1992; Williams, Anderson, McGee, & Silva, 1990). From this research, it is evident that multiple, stressful life events pose a greater threat to children's long-term psychological well-being than does a single life stressor. Although the study of multiple risk factors enhances our understanding of the etiological roots of youth maladjustment, this line of research suffers limitations with respect to issues of conceptualization, measurement, and modeling. Assuming that many recent stressful experiences generally are unfavorable for a child's psychological well-being, risk often is conceptualized in terms of the amount or number of stressful events recently encountered by youth (Johnson, 1982). Risk frequently is assessed using the life-events method, an approach that involves summing the number of self-reported stressful life experiences recently encountered to obtain an overall index of cumulative life stress. As useful as this approach is in determining the amount of stress children experience at a given time, it has several shortcomings. First, inventories of life events yield little information about the relative importance of discrete events. Second, when stressors are summed, interactions among specific stressor events cannot be examined. Third, as a function of the way they are constructed, life-event inventories assume that negative life stressors operate in a linear, additive fashion to increase youths' risk of maladjustment. Although this assumption may not be correct, few researchers have tested for nonlinear effects. (See Masten et al. …

A prospective longitudinal study of psychosocial predictors of achievement

The importance of psychosocial factors in understanding the processes and developmental trajectories affecting academic achievement from school entry to 16 years of age was investigated in a high-risk sample. Based on an organizational-developmental perspective, school achievement was conceptualized as a salient developmental issue. As part of a 17-year prospective longitudinal study, data from early infant experience to assessments on high school achievement were used in this study. Psychosocial and contextual predictor variables included: early psychosocial-developmental history from 12 months to 3 years of age, quality of the home environment upon school entry, cumulative maternal life stress, and cumulative school socioemotional adjustment. Results indicated that psychosocial variables obtained in the first three years of life predicted achievement in elementary school. These variables and later psychosocial variables were also shown to be significant even after controlling for the effects of IQ or prior achievement. The results are discussed with regards to future research.

A prospective investigation of suicidal ideation in college students: a test of a model.

In order to test the predictive validity of a stress--vulnerability model of suicide ideation and behavior, a longitudinal study was conducted with college undergraduates. Based on previous research (Bonner & Rich, 1987; Rich & Bonner, 1987a), measures of social/emotional alienation, adaptive resources for living, and cognitive rigidity were taken at the beginning of the semester and combined to develop a vulnerability score. Then, at midterm, measures of midterm stress and cumulative negative life stress were obtained from the same subjects. It was hypothesized that the vulnerability factor would interact with midterm and negative life stress to predict suicide ideation. Instead of an interactive model, a linear, compensatory model of suicide ideation was found. The combination of alienation, deficient adaptive resources, and life stress best predicted ideation scores. Implications for research and theory are noted.

Social relations, stress, and psychiatric hospitalization among mothers of young children

Hospitalization for mental illness during the first years following childbirth can be viewed as a response both to disturbance in social relationships and to greater cumulative life stress. In order to determine the relative contribution of these factors in determining psychiatric impairment, a regression analysis was carried out using samples of mothers recently discharged from mental hospitals and non-psychiatric controls. A combination of stress in a woman's own life, a personality measure of social introversion, rated impairment in social role performance, and reported frequency and intensity of interpersonal contact showed a multiple correlation of 0. 70 with hospitalization. Impairment in role performance proved to be the single most important source of variance associated with hospitalization.