Negative Life Stress Research Articles

Cognitive effects of life stress and learned helplessness

Abstract Stressful life events and learned helplessness attributional styles have been shown to impact a variety of personal outcomes. This study examined how these factors influence two classes of cognitive behaviors: the occurrence of intrusive thoughts and performance in memory and verbal-spatial reasoning tasks. Negative life change and attributions for negative events predicted different types of cognitive responses. Individuals reporting higher levels of life stress were more likely to experience distracting thoughts that were unrelated to the current task, whereas individuals with learned helplessness attributional styles tended to have more worrisome thoughts about their task performance. In general, individuals reporting high levels of negative life stress tended to perform more poorly in tasks, whereas individuals with learned helplessness attributional styles tended to perform better than those who did not share this explanatory style. These results suggest that life stress and attributional style have important influecnes on cognitive processes, and that a learned helplessness attributional style can have beneficial effects on behavior in some situations.

Academic and Psychosocial Antecedents of Academic Performance for Minority and Nonminority College Football Players

This study investigated the effects of academic and psychosocial variables on the academic performance of minority and nonminority college student athletes. Analyses revealed that higher levels of competitive trait anxiety and negative life stress were associated with lower fall‐term grade point averages for certain nonminority athletes. The academic variable was weakly related to the academic performances of minority and not related to nonminority football players' performances. These findings call into question the use of standardized test scores for predicting academic performance and suggest that academic counselors may want to consider the effects of noncognitive variables in their work with student athletes.

Acute and Chronic Stressors, Social Resources, and Functioning Among Adolescents With Juvenile Rheumatic Disease

This study examined the relations of acute and chronic life stressors and stable social resources to disease-related and psychosocial functioning among 94 adolescents with a chronic physical illness—juvenile rheumatic disease. It also examined whether parental resources moderate the relation of acute and chronic stressors to adolescents' functioning. Life stressors and social resources were unrelated to disease outcomes. According to both self-reports and mothers' reports, however, youth who experienced more acute negative events and chronic life stressors and a lack of stable social resources showed worse psychosocial functioning. Parental resources moderated the relation of acute and chronic stressors to psychosocial functioning; in this group of youth with a chronic physical illness, parental support was more beneficial when there were fewer additional stressors.

Dimensions of perfectionism and suicide ideation

Two studies were conducted to examine the relation between dimensions of perfectionsim and suicide ideation: whether perfectionism is important in suicide ideation when considered in the context of other predictors of suicide (i.e., depression, hopelessness), and whether perfectionism moderates the association between life stress and suicide ideation. Samples of 91 psychiatric patients (Study 1) and 160 college students (Study 2) completed the Multidimensional Perfectionism Scale, the Hopelessness Scale, the Beck Depression Inventory, and the Scale For Suicide Ideation. The subjects in Study 2 also completed a measure of negative life stress. Overall, the results confirmed that self-oriented and socially prescribed perfectionism are associated with greater suicide ideation. Moreover, these two perfectionism dimensions contributed uniquely to the discrimination of suicide groups and both moderated the link between life stress and suicide ideation. The findings are discussed in terms of their practical and theoretical implications.

Positive automatic cognitions as moderators of the negative life event-dysphoria relationship

In this study, the author tested the hypothesis that positive automatic thoughts and the Positive Automatic Thoughts×Negative Life Stress interaction would predict dysphoria. The Automatic Thoughts Questionnaire—Positive, the Automatic Thoughts Questionnaire, the Life Experiences Survey, and the Beck Depression Inventory, were administered to 71 undergraduate volunteers. In hierarchical regression analyses, positive thoughts accounted for unique variance in dysphoria, over and above the variance accounted for by negative life stress and negative thoughts. Furthermore, for higher levels of positive cognitions, negative life stress had a reduced association with dysphoria, which suggested that, as hypothesized, positive cognitions may serve as stress-buffers. Positive automatic cognitions appear to be conceptually viable and may help to account for varied emotional reactions to life stress.

A Holistic Framework for Nursing Care

A holistic nursing framework to be used in the rehabilitation care of the myocardial infarction patient is discussed. Concepts of the framework include interplay of body-mind-spirit, negative life stress, coping modes, and their relationship to illness. Social support in the form of natural caring, together with one's own coping capacity, are usually enough to maintain health, integrity, control, and wholeness. But professional caring is needed when illness is perceived or symptoms develop. A holistic nursing intervention plan for the post-MI patient is proposed. The aim of the article is to facilitate the use of the approach in research and in practice.

Contagious depression: existence, specificity to depressed symptoms, and the role of reassurance seeking.

This study prospectively examined the phenomenon of contagious depression in 96 pairs of college roommates during 2 assessment sessions separated by 3 weeks. Depression, anxiety, negative and positive affect, negative life stress, and reassurance seeking were assessed. Consistent with prediction, roommates of depressed target students became more depressed themselves over the course of the 3-week study. The effect persisted when baseline levels of roommate depression and roommate negative life events were controlled. Furthermore, these findings were specific to depressed symptoms. Finally, as predicted, reassurance seeking served as a vulnerability factor for the contagion effect: High-but not low-reassurance-seeking roommates of depressed target students became more depressed themselves. However, the moderating effects of reassurance seeking were not specific to depressed symptoms.

Nonorganic Failure to Thrive: Maternal History and Current Maternal Functioning

Compared the childhood history and current psychosocial functioning of a group of mothers of infants with nonorganic failure to thrive (NOFT) with a group of mothers of thriving infants. The mothers of the NOFT babies reported more caregiver instability and crises during childhood. With respect to current psychosocial functioning, the mothers of the NOFT babies reported feeling more depressed, reported more negative life stress, had less optimal social networks, and had a more negative perception of their babies.

The moderating effects of social support and playing status on the life stress-injury relationship

Abstract This study prospectively investigated the moderating effects of social support and playing status (i.e., starter vs. non-starter) on the life stress-iqiury relationship in collegiate football players. Playing status moderated the utility of life stress and social support as predictors of athletic injury. For starters, subjective satisfaction with social support moderated the negative life stress-injury relationship. Spacifidly, increases in negative life stress and subjective satisfaction with social support were associated with dcmeases in number of severe injuries, games missed, and time loss due to injury. No stress-injury relationships emerged for non-starters. Implications for future research are discussed.

Hopelessness and stress: Evidence for an interactive model of depression

This investigation used both a path analysis and a hierarchical multiple regression to examine whether hopelessness is a mediator or a moderator of stress-related depressive symptoms. A total of 154 college students completed measures of hopelessness, negative life stress, and depression. Results of the path analysis indicated significant direct effects for both hopelessness and stress such that increases in these variables were associated with increases in depression scores. The indirect effect of stress (through hopelessness) on depression scores was not significant. Results of the hierarchical multiple regression indicated a significant interaction between stress and hopelessness such that hopelessness was more strongly related to depression scores under high levels of stress. Thus, the results of this study provide preliminary evidence that hopelessness moderates, but does not mediate, the relation between stress and depressive symptoms.

The Relationship of Personality Characteristics, Life Stress, and Coping Resources to Athletic Injury

In 1988, Andersen and Williams proposed a model to explain the stress-injury relationship. The present study tested portions of this framework by investigating frequency and severity of injury occurrence in track and field athletes from four NCAA Division I and II universities. Personality characteristics (locus of control and sport competition trait anxiety), history of stressors (life stress, daily hassles, and past injury), and moderating variables (coping resources and social support) were assessed before the season began. Discriminant analyses indicated that four variables (coping resources, negative life stress, social support, and competitive anxiety) differentiated the severity groups. For injury frequency, coping resources and positive life stress differentiated the groups.

Psychosocial antecedents of athletic injury: the effects of life stress and social support on female collegiate gymnasts.

The article presents information from two studies of a research program investigating psychosocial antecedents of athletic injury. Study 1 describes the development of the Life Events Survey for Collegiate Athletes (LESCA). The LESCA demonstrated good content validity and provided a stable measure of life stress. The LESCA's validity and the moderating effects of social support were explored in the second study. The LESCA provided a construct-valid measure of life stress and was a better predictor of athletic injury than the Social and Athletic Readjustment Rating Scale. Social support moderated the stress-injury relationship in such a way that LESCA negative life stress accounted for 11% to 22% of injury variances in low-support conditions; LESCA positive life stress accounted for 14% to 20% of injury variances in high-support conditions. Mechanisms underlying the stress-injury relationship and directions for future research are discussed with respect to the model outlined by M. B. Andersen and J. M. Williams in 1988.

Cardiophobia: A paradigmatic behavioural model of heart-focused anxiety and non-anginal chest pain

Cardiophobia is defined as an anxiety disorder of persons characterized by repeated complaints of chest pain, heart palpitations, and other somatic sensations accompanied by fears of having a heart attack and of dying. Persons with cardiophobia focus attention on their heart when experiencing stress and arousal, perceive its function in a phobic manner, and continue to believe that they suffer from an organic heart problem despite repeated negative medical tests. In order to reduce anxiety, they seek continuous reassurance, make excessive use of medical facilities, and avoid activities believed to elicit symptoms. The relationship of cardiophobia to illness phobia, health anxiety, and panic disorder is discussed. An integrative psychobiological model of cardiophobia is presented which includes previous learning conditions relating to experiences of separation and cardiac disease; deficient and inappropriate behavioural repertoires which constitute a psychological vulnerability for cardiophobic problems; negative life events, Stressors, and conflicts in the person's present situation that trigger and contribute to the symptoms; current affective, cognitive, and behavioural symptoms and their stimulus properties; and genetic and acquired biological vulnerability factors. Finally, recommendations for the treatment of cardiophobia are derived from the model and areas of future research are outlined.

An analysis of adolescent suicidal ideation

The purpose of this study was to investigate the predominant variables (i.e., hopelessness, depression, anxiety, negative life stress, family social climate, coping behaviors) theorized to be etiologically significant in the production of adolescent suicidal ideation. Subjects were 433 normal, midwestern high school students. ANOVAs revealed significant sex differences in level of suicidal ideation over the past year. Therefore, separate path analyses were conducted for males and females. Various statistical tests revealed that assumptions of path analysis were upheld by the male and female models that emerged. For males, levels of depression and family cohesiveness were found to have direct effects on the criterion. For females, levels of depression and trait anxiety were found to have direct effects on the criterion. The remaining significant variables in both models only indirectly affected the criterion.

Individually administered videotape parent training: ?who benefits??

One-hundred families with young conduct problem children were randomly assigned to either an individually administered videotape modeling parent training program (IVM) or to a waiting-list control group. Results immediately posttreatment indicated that treated parents reported using significantly less physical discipline and perceived improvements in their children's behavior problems compared with untreated control parents. During home observations, treated parents exhibited significant changes in at least two of the four behavior outcome variables in their interactions with their children compared with untreated parent—child interactions. One year later, these changes were maintained and the children continued to improve. Correlational analyses indicated that, for treated families, single mother status, maternal depression, and mother's mental age were significantly correlated with at least two of the four mother outcome variables at both posttreatment assessments. A 1-year followup social class was significantly correlated with more critical mother behaviors and increased child deviance. For fathers, analyses indicated that high negative life stress and father depression was correlated with more negative father perceptions of child adjustment and increased child deviance at immediate posttreatment. At 1-year followup only father mental age was correlated with teacher perceptions of child behavior problems. The data support the general effectiveness of the IVM program but caution its use as the sole treatment with highly stressed families.

Problem-solving appraisal, stress, hopelessness, and suicide ideation in a college population.

This investigation expands the research linking problem-solving skills to suicide by examining the role of problem-solving appraisal. In Study 1,277 students enrolled in introductory psychology courses completed measures of problem-solvi ng appraisal, negative life stress, and suicide ideation. In Study 2, 382 students enrolled in introductory psychology courses completed measures of problem-solving appraisal, negative life stress, and hopelessness. The results from both studies suggest that problem-solving appraisal and negative life stress are significant independent predictors of suicide ideation and hopelessness. The results are discussed in terms of Schotte and Clum's (1982, 1987) diathesis-stress-hopelessness model of suicidal behavior. Suicide is a growing concern in American society. This year approximately 28,500 people will commit suicide (Metropolitan Life Insurance Company, 1986). In essence, these statistics reflect, in large part, an inability to cope with the myriad of life demands, problems, and hassles. Moreover, issues relating to suicide are of considerable interest to therapists, with regard not only to protecting clients but also to attempts to understand the interpersonal and intrapersonal dynamics pertaining to suicide. Suicide research has increasingly focused on the role that

Predicting Vulnerability to Hopelessness

The role of loneliness, irrational beliefs, and deficient reasons for living in predicting vulnerability to hopelessness under conditions of negative life stress was examined. Subjects (N = 178) completed the UCLA Loneliness Scale. Rational Beliefs Inventory, and the Reasons for Living Inventory at the beginning of the semester. Then, at midterm, measures of negative life stress, depression, and hopelessness were obtained from the same subjects. It was hypothesized that the vulnerability factors would interact with negative life stress to predict hopelessness, independent of depressed mood. The results of multiple regression analyses supported this hypothesis. Implications for research, prevention, and treatment are noted.

An integrative model of suicidal ideation.

An integrative path model is presented that details the relationships among several demographic variables, life stress, depression, hopelessness, social support, and suicidal ideation. The sample consisted of 737 university students, 287 males and 450 females. Negative life stress was found to be a significant predictor of both depression and hopelessness, which, in turn, mediated the relationship between life stress and suicidal ideation. Contrary to previous findings, depression proved to be a better predictor of suicidal ideation than hopelessness. Findings also illustrated the importance of including social support measures in the model, as significant relationships were discovered between social support and both life stress and suicidal ideation. The model accounted for a total of 34% of the variance in suicidal ideation. Individual findings are interpreted; the ways in which they reflect on previous research, and future efforts, are discussed.

Predictors of treatment outcome in parent training for families with conduct problem children

A total of 101 mothers and 70 fathers with conduct problem children completed a 10-week parent-training program. Treatment effectiveness was assessed at 1 month and 1 year posttreatment based on three types of outcome variables: home observations of parent and child behaviors, parent reports of their children's behavior and teacher reports of the children's adjustment. Multiple regression analyses were performed using four predictors: parent depression, marital status or marital adjustment, socioeconomic status, and amount of negative life experiences. Results indicated that depression and the amount of negative life stress made a significant contribution to the prediction of mother and father reports of child adjustment regardless of the time of the posttreatment assessment. The combination of socioeconomic status and marital status (single versus married) made a significant contribution to mothers' behaviors with their children at both posttreatment assessments. For fathers, marital adjustment made the greatest contribution to the prediction of their critical behaviors with their children immediately at posttreatment but by 1-year follow-up, socioeconomic status emerged as a more significant predictor. For children, the best predictor of the amount of observed child deviance on the home observations was single-parent status or marital adjustment. For families who had a father present, the amount of negative life stress experienced by the family in the year since treatment was completed, was the best predictor of child deviance.

Negative life stress, social problem-solving self-appraisal, and hopelessness: Implications for suicide research

The role of problem-solving self-appraisal and negative life stress in hopelessness among college students was examined. Subjects (n =186) completed the Problem-Solving Inventory, the Life Experiences Survey, the Self-Rating Depression Scale, and the Hopelessness Scale. The results of a hierarchical multiple regression analysis showed that problem-solving self-appraisal and its interaction with negative life stress are independent predictors of hopelessness beyond depressed mood. Results are discussed in terms of the implications for future research and treatment of hopelessness and suicidal behavior.