Low Social Stress Research Articles

Older Adults' Social Stress Profiles: A Cross-Country Comparison of the United States and Mexico

Older adults face heightened risks for loneliness due to social isolation. Low-quality relationships also fuel loneliness. Because living arrangements and family norms differ between countries, cultural differences may arise in the stress of isolation, loneliness, and difficult relationships. To examine social stress profiles in the US and Mexico, HRS (N=17,878) and MHAS (N=15,001) participants rated their loneliness, whether they lived alone, and relationship quality with their spouse, children, and friends. Five latent classes emerged in both samples: lonely and isolated; lonely with poor relationships; moderately lonely with ambivalent relationships; moderately lonely and unhappily married; and low social stress. Lonely isolation was most common among Americans (23.4%), but least common among Mexicans (14.0%). The highest risks for loneliness coincided with living alone in the US, but with low-quality relationships in Mexico. Results reveal undercurrents of older adults’ social stress that were common to both countries, as well as important cultural differences.

The intersectional role of social stress in fracture risk: results from the Women’s Health Initiative

BackgroundThe biological consequences of stress from the social environment pattern health outcomes. This study investigated whether social stress is prospectively associated with fracture incidence among racially and ethnically diverse, postmenopausal...

Correlates of and interrelationships among social stressors, relationship quality, and family functioning among informal cancer caregivers.

230 Background: Informal/family caregivers play a critical role in supporting cancer patients and are often an important part of the palliative care team. To better understand how informal caregivers are influenced by their role and inform future interventions, this study sought to evaluate the distribution and correlates of social and family factors among caregivers of cancer patients. Methods: This cross-sectional study used data from the Cancer Care Outcomes Research & Surveillance Consortium (CanCORS). Lung and colorectal cancer patients nominated an informal caregiver to participate in a caregiving survey. Caregivers reported their sociodemographic and caregiving characteristics, social stress, relationship quality with the patient, and family functioning. Descriptive statistics were used to assess the distribution of caregivers’ social factors. Multivariable linear regressions were used to examine the independent correlates of each social factor. Results: Most caregivers reported low-to-moderate levels of social stress and good relationship quality and family functioning. In multivariable analyses older age was associated with lower social stress and better family functioning, but worse relationship quality, with effect sizes (Cohen’s D) up to 0.40 (p < 0.05). Caring for a female patient was associated with lower social stress and better relationship quality, but worse family functioning (effect sizes up to 0.16, p < 0.05). Few caregiving characteristics were associated with social stress, while several were significant independent correlates of relationship quality. Finally, social factors were important independent correlates of one another. Conclusions: The results highlight the importance of personal and caregiving-related characteristics and the broader family context to social factors. As social factors may play an important role in the health, quality of life, and caregiving efficacy of informal caregivers, future work is needed to better understand these pathways and assess whether interventions targeting social factors can improve caregiver well-being, thereby potentially improving patient-centered palliative care.

Social relationships play a role in sleep status in Chinese undergraduate students

The purpose of this study was to examine whether social relationships were associated with sleep status in Chinese undergraduate students. A cross-sectional questionnaire survey was conducted in November 2012 at Huzhou Teachers College, China. The questionnaire involved demographic characteristics, personal lifestyle habits, social relationships and Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI). The associations between social relationships and sleep status were analyzed by using regression models after adjustment for potential factors. Poor sleep quality was prevalent among Chinese undergraduate students. Men tended to have better sleep than women. Lower social stress, better management of stress and good social support were correlated with better sleep status, and stress or support from friends, family and classmates were all related with sleep variables. While only weak associations between number of friends and sleep were detected. The results were consistent in men and women. Educators and instructors should be aware of the importance of social relationships as well as healthy sleep in undergraduates.

Inteligencia emocional y ajuste psicosocial en la adolescencia: El papel de la percepción emocional

Emotional intelligence (IE), defined as the ability to perceive, use, understand and regulate emotions, has shown a positive influence on the people´s psychological and social adjustment in the specialized literature. However, most of the work has been carried out with adult samples and few investigations have examined this issue with adolescent population. The aim of this paper was to analyze the influence of emotional perception, an ability of EI, on the adolescent´s personal and social adjustment. A sample of 255 Spanish adolescents completed a maximum performance test of emotional perception and different scales measuring personal and social adjustment. Results of correlation and regression analyses showed that adolescents with higher ability to perceive emotions reported having better relationships with peers and parents, lower social stress, higher self-confidence and higher perceived competence. Moreover, emotional perception significantly predicted adolescents’ adjustment even when the effects of sex, age, and personality were controlled for. The findings suggest that emotional intelligence is a promising predictor of adolescent adjustment and may serve as a useful resource for preventive and treatment interventions.

P01-62 Patterns of substance use in an immgrant population in Spain

Aims:The relationship between immigration and drug abuse and its treatment is complex and poorly understood. The objective of this study is to gain insight into patterns of drug use and service access and how they are influenced by social factors and the migratory process in a population of foreign born drug users in Barcelona, Spain.Methods:An interview protocol was developed for the study which examined drug use patterns, social and health factors, and treatment, and was administered to 118 foreign born users in harm reduction centers. 92% were male and 8% were female. 42% were from Eastern Europe, 35% were from the Magreb, 14% from the European Community, 6% from Subsaharan Africa and 3% from Latin America.Results:With migration opium use decreased whereas cocaine, heroin, and speedball increased, which also constitute the primary drug used by this sample. Social support was correlated with greater consumption of heroin, cocaine, and alcohol, whereas lower social stress was predictive of higher cannabis use. Hard drug use was predicted by illegal status and a lack of stable housing. Acculturation and acclturative stress were not found to be related to substance use. Treatment was positively evaluated, with no perception of lower quality of care.Discussion:Drug use patterns shift with the migratory process, and, it would appear, adapt to the dominant local ones. The unexpecting findings regarding social factors and acculturation and acculturative stress may indicate differences in the Spanish drug use context, and as such warrant further research.

Traits, states, and attentional gates: Temperament and threat relevance as predictors of attentional bias to social threat

This study investigated the influence of situational and dispositional factors on attentional biases toward social threat, and the impact of these attentional biases on distress in a sample of adolescents. The results suggest greater biases for personally relevant threat cues, as individuals reporting high social stress were vigilant to subliminal social threat cues, but not physical threat cues, and those reporting low social stress showed no attentional biases. Individual differences in fearful temperament and attentional control interacted to influence attentional biases, with fearful temperament predicting biases to supraliminal social threat only for individuals with poor attentional control. Multivariate analyses exploring relations between attentional biases for social threat and symptoms of anxiety and depression revealed that attentional biases alone were rarely related to symptoms. However, biases did interact with social stress, fearful temperament, and attentional control to predict distress. The results are discussed in terms of automatic and effortful cognitive mechanisms underlying threat cue processing.

Reproductive Control in Wild Baboons Measured by Fecal Steroids1

Measurements of reproductive hormones (progestins and estrogens) excreted in feces were used to discriminate between 25 conceptive and 76 nonconceptive (including undetected early abortion) cycles of free-ranging yellow baboons at Mikumi National Park, Tanzania. Conceptive cycles had significantly higher luteal-phase progestin and estrogen concentrations than nonconceptive cycles as early as Day 4 postovulation. However, mean early luteal-phase progestin concentrations in conceptive cycles were lower when conception occurred during ecologically optimal vs. suboptimal times, and among females of high compared to low dominance rank. Mean estrogen concentrations in conceptive cycles showed the opposite dominance rank pattern: mean luteal-phase estrogen concentrations were higher in conceptive cycles of high-compared to low-ranking females. None of these relations existed for nonconceptive cycles. These data suggest that successful implantation is facilitated by relatively high early luteal-phase progestin and estrogen concentrations. However, long-term environmental cues predicting the probability of offspring survival appear to influence the amount of progesterone required for successful implantation; progesterone concentrations necessary to facilitate successful implantation are higher during suboptimal seasons or among females of low dominance rank-cues that also suggest that offspring survival conditions are relatively poor. This may act as a reproductive filter, restricting conception to females whose immediate condition (e.g., low social stress and good physical health) enables them to compensate physiologically and behaviorally for effects associated with these relatively harsh offspring survival conditions.

Effect of supplemental corticosterone and social stress on organophosphorus-induced delayed neuropathy in chickens

Adult White Leghorn roosters maintained for 3 months in an environment of low social stress (LSS) were given triorthotolyl phosphate (TOTP), 180 mg kg po, 24 h after initial exposure to either an environment of high social stress (HSS) or exogenously administered corticosterone (200 ppm in diet). The environment of HSS or the administration of corticosterone were continued for 10 days after TOTP administration. It was noted that the heterophil/lymphocyte ratio, a hematological indicator of stress, was similar in both groups and both had similar scores for clinical signs of delayed neuropathy. Both heterophil/ lymphocyte ratios and clinical scores were significantly lower in chickens kept in the LSS environment and not fed corticosterone than in chickens kept in the HSS environment or fed corticosterone.

Modification of triorthotolyl phosphate toxicity in chickens by stress

Chickens housed for 4.5 months in an environment of either low social stress or high social stress were administered triorthotolyl phosphate (TOTP) 180 mg/kg po. Clinical signs of delayed neuropathy were less in the low social stress group, unless moved to a high stress environment 24 hr before TOTP administration. Neurotoxic esterase activity was less than 20% of control values in all treatment groups. Birds from the low social stress group moved 24 hr prior to TOTP were more susceptible to inhibition of brain and liver cholinesterase activities following organophosphate administration. Liver microsomal enzyme activities ( O-demethylase and aniline hydroxylase) were lowest in unmoved low social stress birds after TOTP, possibly protecting these birds from delayed neuropathy by reducing conversion of this organophosphate to its active metabolite.