Positive Events as a Stress Buffer for Children and Adolescents in Families in Transition

Abstract

This study examined whether positive events mitigated the relation between negative events and maladjustment in samples of children and adolescents experiencing family transitions. The study examined this relation in two samples, used multiple reporters of maladjustment, and employed "tailor-made" checklists to measure events. The first sample included 86 stepfamilies with adolescents 10 to 17 years of age. The second sample included 171 divorced families with children 8 to 15 years of age. Evidence that positive events are protective for children and adolescents experiencing high levels of negative events was found across the 2 samples and across mother and child report of adjustment. These findings have implications for theory and intervention development.

Negative and Positive Disability-related Events and Adjustment of Parents with Acquired Physical Disabilities and of their Adolescent Children

“…This disparity is consistent with the small events and life events literature (Doyle et al 2003;Kanner et al 1991;Reich and Zautra 1988), as well as with an earlier study of parents with acquired physical disabilities and their adolescent children (Mazur 2006). This result challenges clinical psychological and medically oriented research that describes parents with physical disabilities and their families as experiencing intolerable stress (Armistead et al 1995;Iwasaki and Macatavish 2005;Lundwall 2002).…”

“…Similar to results from studies with adults and adolescents without disabilities (Doyle et al 2003;Kanner et al 1991), Mazur (2006) found that parents with acquired physical disabilities and their adolescent children reported more positive than negative events. Events appraised as positive may increase parents' (Reich and Zautra 1988) and adolescents' adjustment (Doyle et al 2002(Doyle et al , 2003Sandler et al 1991).…”

“…In order to fully understand the correlations between these events and adjustment, it will be important to give equal attention to both directions of possible causal influence in future research with a larger sample size. A larger sample also would allow researchers to test the independent and interactive effects of severity of disability and negative events in explaining parent and adolescent adjustment as well as possible stress-buffering effects of positive events (Doyle et al 2003;Reich and Zautra 1988).…”

“…Both are, in essence, person-environment approaches that emphasize individuals' need to master the adaptive tasks associated with extensive and enduring changes in their lives. Felner et al's (1983) model has explained successfully variability in parenting stress (Haskett et al 2006) and in the adjustment of children considered at-risk, such as those experiencing parental divorce or remarriage (Doyle et al 2002;Doyle et al 2003). Potentially, Felner's model can function as the metatheoretical framework that explains the links among disability-related events and child and parent adjustment for which many reviewers of research on parental disability have called (Kelley et al 1997;Meadow-Orlans 2002;Olkin 1999).…”

Hostility, Interpersonal Competence, and Daily Dependent Stress: A Daily Model of Stress Generation

“…To date, stress generation research has focused exclusively on negative affect and negative life events, despite research demonstrating the stress-buffering effects of positive life events (e.g., Cohen et al 1984;Doyle et al 2003).…”