Poverty and involuntary engagement stress responses: examining the link to anxiety and aggression within low-income families

Abstract

Families living with the burdens of poverty-related stress are at risk for developing a range of psychopathology. The present study examines the year-long prospective relationships among poverty-related stress, involuntary engagement stress response (IESR) levels, and anxiety symptoms and aggression in an ethnically diverse sample of 98 families (300 individual family members) living at or below 150% of the US federal poverty line. Hierarchical Linear Modeling (HLM) moderator model analyses provided strong evidence that IESR levels moderated the influence of poverty-related stress on anxiety symptoms and provided mixed evidence for the same interaction effect on aggression. Higher IESR levels, a proxy for physiological stress reactivity, worsened the impact of stress on symptoms. Understanding how poverty-related stress and involuntary stress responses affect psychological functioning has implications for efforts to prevent or reduce psychopathology, particularly anxiety, among individuals and families living in poverty.

Stress Generation and Adolescent Depression: Contribution of Interpersonal Stress Responses

“…Research using Compas and colleagues’ (2001) framework indicates that lower levels of engagement coping (Calvete & Connor-Smith, 2006; Compas et al, 2006; Connor-Smith et al, 2000; Wadsworth, Raviv, Compas, & Connor-Smith, 2005) and higher levels of disengagement coping (Calvete & Connor-Smith, 2006; Wadsworth et al, 2005) and involuntary engagement and disengagement (Connor-Smith et al, 2000; Wadsworth et al, 2005) are concurrently associated with internalizing symptoms in adolescents and young adults. In one prospective study, involuntary engagement predicted anxiety, particularly under conditions of high, but not low, levels of stress (Wolff, Santiago, & Wadsworth, 2009). …”

Characteristics of people with low health literacy on coronary heart disease GP registers in South London: a cross-sectional study

“…Setting: 16 General Practices in South London, UK. Participants: Inclusion: patients >18 years, registered with a GP and on a GP CHD register.…”

Advances in Psychology and Law

“…Both primary and secondary coping strategies may be adaptive, depending on the environmental stressors themselves. Involuntary coping, which is also sometimes referred to as disengagement or avoidance coping, in contrast, is linked to negative outcomes (Connor- Smith & Compas, 2004 ;Wolff, Santiago, & Wadsworth, 2009 ).…”