Showing papers on "Social stress published in 1983"

Positive Events and Social Supports as Buffers of Life Change Stress

Abstract: A perceived availability of social support measure (the ISEL) was designed with independent subscales measuring four separate support functions. In a sample of college students, both perceived availability of social support and number of positive events moderated the relationship between negative life stress and depressive and physical symptomatology. In the case of depressive symptoms, the data fit a “buffering” hypothesis pattern, i.e., they suggest that both social support and positive events protect one from the pathogenic effects of high levels of life stress but are relatively unimportant for those with low levels of stress. In the case of physical symptoms, the data only partially support the buffering hypothesis. Particularly, the data suggest that both social support and positive events protect one from the pathogenic effects of high levels of stress but harm those (i.e., are associated with increased symptomatology) with low levels of stress. Further analyses suggest that self-esteem and appraisal support were primarily responsible for the reported interactions between negative life stress and social support. In contrast, frequency of past social support was not an effective life stress buffer in either the case of depressive or physical symptomatology. Moreover, past support frequency was positively related to physical symptoms and unrelated to depressive symptoms, while perceived availability of support was negatively related to depressive symptoms and unrelated to physical symptoms.

Aerobic fitness level and reactivity to psychosocial stress: Physiological, biochemical, and subjective measures

Abstract: Aerobic fitness is associated with numerous physiological adaptations which permit physical stress to be coped with more efficiently. The present experiment examined whether aerobic fitness influences emotional response. Heart rate, biochemical measures (catecholamines, cortisol, prolactin, lactic acid), and self-reported arousal and anxiety were monitored in 15 highly trained and 15 untrained subjects at various points before, during and following exposure to a series of psychosocial stressors. Heart rate and subjective arousal level increased markedly during the stressors in both groups. Trained subjects showed higher levels of norepinephrine and prolactin early in the stress period, more rapid heart rate recovery following the stressors, and lower levels of anxiety at the conclusion of the session. This more rapid heart rate and subjective recovery from psychosocial stress, suggests that aerobically trained individuals may be capable of faster recovery in both physiological and subjective dimensions of emotionality. The differences in reactivity profiles between the aerobically trained and untrained were discussed in light of models that have dealt with the adaptiveness of emotional response.

Social Stress and the Family: Advances and Developments in Family Stress Therapy and Research

Abstract: Contents Introduction * The Family Stress Process: The Double ABCX Model of Adjustment and Adaptation * Critical Transitions Over the Family Life Span: Theory and Research * Family Stress as Community Frame * Family Problem Solving and Family Stress * Individual Coping Efforts and Family Studies: Conceptual and Methodological Issues * Social Support and Family Stress * Contribution of Personality Research to an Understanding of Stress and Aging * Family Divorce and Separation: Theory and Research * Mundane Extreme Environmental Stress in Family Stress Theories: The Case of Black Families in White America * Analytic Essay: Family Stress and Bereavement * Researching Family Stress * Reference Notes Included

Social anxiety, anxious self-preoccupation, and recall of self-relevant information

Abstract: Theoretical and empirical efforts concerning cognitive processes associated with anxiety have typically emphasized either cognitive deficits (i.e., reduced learning, memory, and task performance) or cognitive excesses (i.e., increased self-focused, ruminative thought). To date, evidence of these two types of cognitive processes has primarily been based on different types of sources (i.e., performance measures vs. self-reports), which precludes direct comparisons of the extent to which cognitive deficits and/or excesses characterize anxiety states. The present study attempted to directly compare the cognitive excesses and deficits associated with social anxiety by operationalizing both types of cognitive phenomena with similar performance measures. A modified self-referent depth-of-processing paradigm was employed. The results indicated that socially anxious individuals in a socially evaluative situation evidenced a specific type of cognitive excess (i.e., concern over evaluations by others) but not cognitive deficits. The results are discussed in the context of person-by-situation models of anxiety and in the context of the nature and treatment of social anxiety.

Life events, relatives' expressed emotion and maintenance neuroleptics in schizophrenic relapse

Abstract: Data from two studies, one naturalistic and the other a controlled trial, were analysed to clarify the relationships between independent life events. Expressed Emotion of a key relative, maintenance neuroleptics and the relapse of schizophrenia. It was found that patients in the community who are unprotected by medication are vulnerable either to acute stress in the form of life events or to chronic stress in the form of living with a high Expressed Emotion relative. Patients on regular medication are protected against one or other stress, but are very likely to relapse if the two forms of stress occur together. A model of schizophrenic susceptibility to environmental stress is constructed to incorporate these observations.

The role of social pressure, attention to the stimulus, and self‐doubt in conformity

Abstract: The theorizing of Asch and Moscovici was used as a framework for exploring the relationships among social pressure, attention to the stimulus, doubt about one's own judgment, and conformity. Male and female subjects (N = 185) were confronted either with one (low social pressure) or three (high social pressure) others who judged 12 critical pairs of noises as equal in loudness. The noises within each pair actually varied in how similar they were in loudness. High social pressure resulted in most subjects paying either little or much attention to the stimulus; low social pressure resulted in most subjects paying a moderate amount of attention to the stimulus. When social pressure was high, greater self-doubt was associated with less attention to the stimulus; when social pressure was low, greater self-doubt was associated with more attention to the stimulus. Conformity was positively associated with self-doubt and negatively associated with attention to the stimulus. Social pressure increased conformity, particularly when subjects paid little attention to the stimulus. Although the results are interpreted as partially consistent with both the Asch and the Moscovici perspectives, they are not totally consistent with either.

Essential hypertension and social coping behavior: experimental findings.

Abstract: The present study investigated the hypothesis that mild hypertensives display a distinctive response pattern to interpersonal stress that includes: inadequate social skills, negative cognitive set and cardiovascular hyperreactivity. After completing a set of questionnaires measuring anxiety and cognitive style, subjects monitored interpersonal stress in the natural environment. Following this, blood pressure and heart rate were recorded while subjects interacted with trained role-players in two types of role-play situations: individualized high distress and low distress situations. Hypertensives reported comparable anxiety and were evaluated as equally skilled when compared to normotensives. The cognitive reaction pattern however, discriminated between the groups with hypertensives perceiving less stress and displaying a ‘repressive-defensive’ cognitive style. Hypertensives displayed a hyperresponse on systolic blood pressure but not on heart rate. With regard to diastolic pressure, controls reac...

Social environment and breast cancer. A cohort analysis of patient survival.

Abstract: Several crude indicators of social stress and social involvement were used to explain survival among 283 women with breast cancer. The relationships of some stress and involvement indicators to survival are apparent; the data provide evidence that social stress decreases and social involvement increases the length of time breast cancer patients survive.

Electrocardiographic effects of social stress on coronary-prone (type A) individuals.

Abstract: Subjects selected for possession of either the Type A (coronary-prone) or Type B (coronary-resistant) behavior pattern interacted with a computer, while appearing to interact with a partner, in a formal competitive game of social strategy. Type A subjects exhibited greater impatience than Type B subjects. Computer analysis of the electrocardiogram revealed that social stimulation elicited larger ventricular electrophysiological responses (ST segment depression, and reduction of T wave and R wave amplitudes) in Type A than in Type B subjects. Such changes are consistent with the assumption of greater cardiac sympathetic activity during the social interactions in the Type A subjects.

Effect of Population Stress on the Histophysiology of Avian Endocrine Organs

Abstract: The objective of this brief review is to present the current status of our knowledge regarding the endocrine and behavioral responses to crowding stress in avian species. The main resultant of this social stress is reflected in partial reproductive failure and other physiological disorders. Epinephrine is possibly one of the principal hormones which play a substantial role in counteracting the stress situation. The present work also reports on several environmental factors which triggero the situation of social stress Finally the possible mode of action of stress response has also been discussed.

The Relationship Among Stress, Anxiety, Self Concept, Social Support and Illness in Children

Abstract: This research study was designed to investigate the relationships of stress, anxiety, self concept, social support and illness in children and to examine the potential of specific cognitive mediating variables, self concept and anxiety, and an external mediating variable, social support and an interaction between self concept and social support, to significantly increase the efficiency of stress as a predictor of children's illness. The purposes of this study were (1) to determine if stressful life events, anxiety, self concept, social support, sex and illness are related in children, (2) to determine if stressful life events are an adequate predictor of illness in children, (3) to determine if a combination of anxiety, self concept and social support will increase the predictive efficiency concerning illness in children, (4) to provide information that may help develop a theoretical base concerning stressful life events and illness in children, and (5) to provide information that may be beneficial with regard to future research involving stress, anxiety, self concept, social support, sex and illness in children.

Social integration and mental health in a biracial community

Abstract: The study investigated the relationship between social integration and mental health, with a particular interest in social integration in a minority group context. The study involved a home interview with 33 white and 30 black women who resided in a residentially integrated working-class community in Austin, Texas. Although blacks reported significantly more psychological symptoms than whites, the race effect was explained by an underlying interaction between race and social integration. Blacks low in social integration showed more symptoms than either white respondents or blacks with a high level of integration. The Race X Social integration interaction is considered in the light of societally based prejudice and the potential social stress associated with minority group status.

A review of stressors in the home

Abstract: Stress can be defined as a dependent variable, an independent variable or as an interactive variable. The most workable definition is the latter, ‘the transactional model’. This describes stress as a ‘lack of fit’ between an organism and the environment in which an imbalance occurs at a cognitive level between perceived demand and perceived capability producing an unpleasant, emotional experience and a stress response. Stressors in the domestic environment may be noxious stimuli, social stressors, phenomenological stressors, or developmental stressors; all of which are discussed. In conclusion, the studies reviewed are suggested as failing to consider the large number of variables involved and in addition more work on the relationship between work stress and home life should be undertaken.