Showing papers by "James S. House published in 1991"

Relation of work and retirement to health and well-being in older age.

Abstract: Patterns of labor-force participation were studied with a broad array of indicators of physical and psychological well-being. The sheer amount of work--whether people work and, if so, how many hours they work--shows little relationship to health and well-being. Drawing on scattered existing research and theory, it is hypothesized and found that persons whose patterns of labor-force participation (or nonparticipation) reflect their personal preference report higher levels of physical and psychological well-being than do those whose level of labor-force involvement is constrained by other factors. The results do not differ by gender, age (65 years and older vs. 55-64 years), or occupation (professional vs. clerical or sales vs. blue-collar workers). Data are from 1,339 respondents 55 years of age or older in the Americans' Changing Lives Survey, a large national, cross-sectional survey of Americans 25 years of age and older with an oversample of those 60 years of age and older, and are analyzed by ordinary least squares multiple regression.

Factors facilitating adjustment to unemployment: Implications for intervention

Abstract: Conducted a community survey in the Fall of 1984 in a sample of high unemployment blue-collar census tracts in southeastern Michigan. Results of earlier analyses using these data showed that involuntarily unemployed workers had significantly elevated levels of depression, anxiety, somatization, and self-reported physical illness relative to a stably employed comparison group (Kessler, House, & Turner, 1987). Results presented in this paper document that this relationship is modified by social support (as measured by social integration and the availability of a confidant), self-concept, and various coping processes. Further analyses allowed us to determine the way in which these modifiers operate. The modifying effects of social support and coping operate primarily by buffering the impact of unemployment-related financial strain on the health outcomes. Self-concept operates primarily by attenuating vulnerability to other stressful life events. The implications of these results for the design and implementation of preventive interventions are discussed.

Sociology, Psychology and Social Psychology (and Social Science)

Abstract: A little over a decade ago, I wrote one of the numerous papers of the 1970s analyzing the perceived “crisis” of social psychology of that time (House, 1977). My particular diagnosis of that crisis was that it reflected the division of social psychology into three increasingly isolated domains or faces: (1) psychological social psychology, (2) symbolic interactionism, and (3) what I termed psychological sociology or what is more often labelled as the study of social structure and personality. I saw the solution to the crisis in greater unification of, or at least interchange between, the three faces and their disparate substantive and methodological concerns, though I had only tentative ideas on how that might be achieved, and was uncertain that it could be. Much of what I wrote ten years ago remains valid in my view, but I also have revised or extended my thinking on some issues.