Stress-buffering Hypothesis Research Articles

The Social Costs of Unemployment: Implications for Social Support

Social support is typically viewed as a stable factor that is potentially an important moderator of the effects of stressful life events. This study examines the effect of one economic stressor, unemployment, on social support, the mediation of this effect, and then the stress-buffering hypothesis. Data were taken from a longitudinal panel study of 82 blueand white-collar men who recently experienced unemployment. Social support was measured in three ways: 1) marital and family support; 2) help (from outside the family) with problems; and 3) number and frequency of contacts with social network members. Following unemployment, a significant decline in two offour indicators of marital support was found for all workers. When the number of weeks of unemployment was considered, a decrease in the quality of the marital relation and an increase in help with problems was found for white-collar workers. A decrease in frequency of contact with network members for blue-collar workers was also observed. Mediation analyses indicated that unemployment has a negative effect on marital and family support in part through its effect on the husband's psychological wvell-being. Two different methods for estimating the stress-buffering effects of supports most susceptible to change during job loss indicate that buffering does occur. The conceptual implications of the nonindependence between stressful events and social supports for the stress buffering hypothesis are examined.

Stress and coping in the explanation of psychological adjustment among chronically ill adults

This study evaluates the utility of a stress and coping paradigm for explanining individual differences in psychological adjustment to chronic illness. Using data from the first wave of a longitudinal study of 170 middle-aged and elderly adults faced with one of four chronic illnesses (hypertension, diabetes mellitus, cancer and rheumatoid arthritis), this paper examines the relationship between the stresses of chronic illness and coping, and the ability of coping to explain psychological adjustment. Results show coping strategy use tends to be minimally explained by medical diagnosis. Cognitive strategies, including information seeking, are related to positive affect while emotional strategies, particularly those involving avoidance, blame and emotional ventilation, are related to negative affect, lowered self-esteem and poorer adjustment to illness. While the findings suggest that a stress and coping model may be valuable in understanding adjustment among the chronically ill, the general modesty of coping effects and the failure of the stress buffering hypothesis to explain adjustment indicates a need for new research approaches and some modification of current theories of coping.