An Evaluation of the Etiologic Role of Stressful Life-Change Events in Psychological Disorders

Gersten, Joanne C.; Langner, Thomas S.; Eisenberg, Jeanne G.; Simcha-Fagan, Ora

doi:10.2307/2136351

Cited by 179 publications

(110 citation statements)

References 5 publications

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“…Their data showed that when the effect of persistent role problems on psychological distress is statistically controlled, the association between discrete events and distress is diminished. A study by Gersten and colleagues 25 examined longitudinal data from a survey of 732 mothers of children. They found that after controlling for ongoing stressful processes, which were analogous to role problems, there was a substantial reduction in the relation between life events and children's behavior problems.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Feeling bad: exploring sources of distress among pre-adolescent children.

Lewis¹,

Siegel²,

Lewis³

1984

Am J Public Health

182

107

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Previous studies of stress in childhood have used instruments containing items describing events/conditions thought by adults to be stressful for children. In interviews with 5th-and 6th-grade children, we asked them to describe circumstances that would make or had made them feel bad, nervous, or worried. After pretesting this children's list of items, we administered it to 2,480 5th graders. Subjects ranked how bad they would/did feel if each item happened and, also, how often each had occurred. Children also self-rated their mental health status. There were significant associations between children's ratings of mental health and "Feel Bad" scores. Girls rated most items significantly higher (more bad) than

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Feeling bad: exploring sources of distress among pre-adolescent children.

Lewis¹,

Siegel²,

Lewis³

1984

Am J Public Health

182

107

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show abstract

“…These items are less likely to be confounded with indices of adjustment as compared to events such as failing a grade or losing a job (see Gersten, Langner, Eisenberg, & Simcha-Fagan, 1977;Masten et al, 1988). In this study, therefore, stress was operationalized based only on uncontrollable negative events.…”

Section: Measure Of Stressmentioning

confidence: 99%

Resilience is not a unidimensional construct: Insights from a prospective study of inner-city adolescents

1993

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The maintenance of high social competence despite stress was examined in a 6-month prospective study of 138 inner-city ninth-grade students. The purpose was to provide a replication and extension of findings derived from previous cross-sectional research involving a comparable sample of children. Specifically, goals were to examine the extent to which high-stress children with superior functioning on one or more aspects of school-based social competence could evade significant difficulties in (a) other spheres of competence at school and (b) emotional adjustment. Measurements of stress were based on uncontrollable negative life events. Competence was assessed via behavioral indices including school grades, teacher ratings, and peer ratings, and emotional distress was measured via self-reports. Results indicated that high-stress children who showed impressive behavioral competence were highly vulnerable to emotional distress over time. Furthermore, almost 85% of the high-stress children who seemed resilient based on at least one domain of social competence at Time 1 had significant difficulties in one or more domains examined when assessed at both Time 1 and Time 2. Findings are discussed in terms of conceptual and empirical issues in resilience research.As empirical research on childhood resilience in the face of stress gathers momentum, increasingly sophisticated research designs are being used. Prospective studies, for example, have built upon preliminary cross-sectional findings in studying stress resistance among school-age and early adolescent children (e.g., DuBois, Felner, Brand, Adan, & Evans, 1992;Dubow & Tisak, 1989;Dubow, Tisak, Causey, Hryshko, & Reid, 1991). Although inner-city teenagers are a group at extremely high risk for a range of behavior problems (Farrington, 1987;Snyder & Patterson, 1987), there have been relatively few attempts to systematically study resilience in this group. The goal of this study was to use short-term longitudinal data to build upon initial exploratory findings (Luthar, 1991) in investigating aspects of resilience among socioeconomically disadvantaged high school students. Internalizing Symptoms and ResilienceIn contemporary research on children, resilience has typically been defined in terms of success in meeting developmental tasks or societal expectations, as reflected in overt, behavioral indices such as school grades and ratings by teachers, peers, and parents (Luthar Copyright © 1993 & Zigler, 1991). The assumption underlying this operational definition is that manifest competence usually reflects good underlying coping skills (Garmezy & Masten, 1986, 1991.Recent empirical evidence has indicated, however, that among high-risk children, those who are behaviorally competent are not necessarily well adjusted on indices of emotional adjustment (Luthar & Zigler, 1991). To illustrate, in a recent study on children of depressed parents, Radke-Yarrow and Sherman (1990) reported that although some children seemed to be surviving relatively well (e.g., in terms o...

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“…These items are less likely to be confounded with indices of adjustment as compared to events such as "failing a grade" or "losing a job." Some researchers (e.g., Gersten, Langner, Eisenberg, & Simcha-Fagan, 1977;Masten et al, 1988) have advocated the use of only uncontrollable events in life stress research to protect against possible confounds with outcome variables. Others, however, have argued for the inclusion of both types of events given the intention to sample the major domain of stressful events, since even those events that may be under the person's control could be stressful when experienced (Johnson, 1986).…”

Section: Measures Of Stressmentioning

confidence: 99%

Vulnerability and Resilience: A Study of High-Risk Adolescents

Luthar¹

1991

Child Development

560

151

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Factors that allow children to maintain socially competent behaviors despite stress were examined among 144 inner-city ninth-grade students with a mean age of 15.3 years. Stress was operationalized by scores on a negative life events scale, and definitions of social competence were based on peer ratings, teacher ratings, and school grades. Moderator variables examined included intelligence, internal locus of control, social skills, ego development, and positive life events. Following theoretical models by Garmezy and Rutter, distinctions were made between compensatory factors (which are directly related to competence) and protective/vulnerability factors (which interact with stress in influencing competence). Ego development was found to be compensatory against stress. Internality and social skills proved to be protective factors, while intelligence and positive events were involved in vulnerability processes. This study also revealed that children labeled as resilient were significantly more depressed and anxious than were competent children from low stress backgrounds.Faced with life stresses, many children develop psychological difficulties, while others function well. Children in the latter group, labeled "resilient" or "stress resistant," defy expectation by developing into well-adapted individuals. The primary aim of this investigation was to explore variables that promote resilience, that is, that allow children to remain competent despite exposure to stressful life experiences.The phenomenon of resilience was examined among inner-city adolescents. Much of the previous research has been conducted with preadolescent and younger children Garmezy, Masten, & Tellegen, 1984;Masten et al., 1988;Werner & Smith, 1982) or with young adults (Quinton, Rutter, & Liddle, 1984;Werner, 1989). This study sought to determine whether variables identified as being protective at different ages served ameliorative functions during adolescence as well. Selection of an inner-city sample was based on findings of higher rates of adolescent behavior problems (e.g., juvenile delinquency) among underprivileged populations (Farrington, 1987;Snyder & Patterson, 1987). Epidemiological data such as these underscore the need for research on stress resistance among disadvantaged teenagers.Operational definitions of the two central constructs embedded within the major research question, that is, stress and competence, were based on earlier research in the area. Two © 1991 by the Society for Research in Child Development, Inc. All rights reserved. Requests for reprints should be directed to Suniya Luthar, Department of Psychiatry, Yale University, 27 Sylvan Avenue, New Haven, CT 06519. approaches have commonly been used in operationalizing stress. One of these, termed the "life events method,' involves the use of self-report measures to obtain a count of stressful life events encountered in the recent past O'Grady & Metz, 1987). An alternative strategy has been to examine the separate effects of individual life stresses that are "ob...

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An Evaluation of the Etiologic Role of Stressful Life-Change Events in Psychological Disorders

Cited by 179 publications

References 5 publications

Feeling bad: exploring sources of distress among pre-adolescent children.

Feeling bad: exploring sources of distress among pre-adolescent children.

Resilience is not a unidimensional construct: Insights from a prospective study of inner-city adolescents

Vulnerability and Resilience: A Study of High-Risk Adolescents

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