Blair Wheaton

The epidemiology of social stress.

We examine the social distribution of exposure to stress to test the hypothesis that differences in stress exposure are one factor in sociodemographic variations in mental health. We make a more comprehensive effort to estimate stress exposure than has been typical, and present data that challenge the prevailing view that differences in exposure to stress are of only minimal significance for understanding variations in mental health. We report several findings, principal among which are: Differences in exposure to stress account for substantially more variability in depressive symptoms and major depressive disorder than previous reports have suggested; the distributions of stress exposure across sex, age, marital status, and occupational status precisely correspond to the distributions of depressive symptoms and major depressive disorder across the same factors; and differences in exposure to stress alone account for between 23 and 50 percent of observed differences in mental health by sex, marital status, and occupation. These findings contrast with the prevailing view that differences in vulnerability to stress across social statuses account for social status variations in mental health.

The sociogenesis of psychological disorder: an attributional theory.

Before social causation explanations of psychological disorder can be considered plausible, the process by which socialfactors may affect the development of disorder must be made explicit in terms of a given theory. This paper formulates an attributional theory intended primarily to explain social status effects, although other applications are possible. The point of departure for this model is the socializing influence of SES on causal attribution tendencies (i.e., fatalism) and the resulting variation in vulnerability to psychological disorder. Data from two panel studies suggest that causal attribution styles could in fact play a central role in the mediation of social causation of disorder. Comparisons of two contrasting versions of the attributional model show that a simple, linear interpretation of the intervening effects offatalism may be the most adequate. The paper concludes with suggestions for elaborations of the basic theory.

Space meets time: Integrating temporal and contextual influences on mental health in early adulthood

The integration of temporal life course perspectives and current social context perspectives is considered as a framework for the understanding of mental health differences in early adulthood, a formative stage in the development of long-term mental health differences. Using data from the National Survey of Children and a cross-nested random effects model to simultaneously assess the effects of current and past neighborhood, the authors find a lagged effect of childhood neighborhood socioeco-nomic disadvantage on early adult mental health, while accounting for initial mental health status. This lagged effect also explains the apparent (bivariate) effect of current neighborhood. Four hypotheses are assessed to explain the lagged effect of neighborhood: contextual continuity, mental health continuity, life course stress accumulation, and ambient chronic stress in the neighborhood. Support is found for a cumulative mediating effect of both life course stress and ambient neighborhood stress as children grow up; together, these variables entirely explain the lagged effect of early neighborhood. Findings suggest the need for a more temporal life course approach to the specification of social context effects in general, focusing on the history of social contexts that individuals live in and move through. Temporal-contextual perspectives also encourage a focus on theoretical models that can differentially locate formative contextual influences at different stages in the life course

Measuring Psychological Well-Being in the Canadian Study of Health and Aging

The Canadian Study of Health and Aging (CHSA) provided an opportunity to examine the positive aspects of aging. CHSA-2 included the 18-item Ryff multidimensional measure of well-being, which taps six core theoretical dimensions of positive psychological functioning. The measure was administered to 4,960 seniors without severe cognitive impairment or dementia at CSHA-2. Intercorrelations across scales were generally low. At the same time, the internal consistency reliability of each of the 6 subscales was not found to be high. Confirmatory factor analyses provide support for a 6-factor model, although some items demonstrate poor factor loadings. The well-being measures in CSHA-2 provide an opportunity to examine broad, descriptive patterns of well-being in Canadian seniors.

The Nature of Chronic Stress

In 1984, the middle span of a bridge over a river on I-95 between New York and Boston collapsed near midnight, extinguishing the lights along the highway for miles leading up to a bridge. Without the usual light, cars hurtled off the last intact span into the black waters below, until the driver of a semi-trailer saw the gap, squealed to a stop, and purposely jackknifed his truck to block the way.

Addressing Data Sparseness in Contextual Population Research

The use of multilevel modeling with data from population-based surveys is often limited by the small number of cases per Level 2 unit, prompting a recent trend in the neighborhood literature to apply cluster techniques to address the problem of data sparseness. In this study, the authors use Monte Carlo simulations to investigate the effects of marginal group sizes on multilevel model performance, bias, and efficiency. They then employ cluster analysis techniques to minimize data sparseness and examine the consequences in the simulations. They find that estimates of the fixed effects are robust at the extremes of data sparseness, while cluster analysis is an effective strategy to increase group size and prevent the overestimation of variance components. However, researchers should be cautious about the degree to which they use such clustering techniques due to the introduction of artificial within-group heterogeneity.

The sociogenesis of psychological disorder: reexamining the causal issues with longitudinal data.

Although there is some consistency to the finding that socioeconomic status is related inversely to various measures and concepts of psychological disorder, the causal interpretation of this relationship remains uncertain. As usually stated, the issue is whether this inverse relationship arises from the fact and that low social status leads to disorder symptomatology (referred to as social causation) or a high degree of symptomatology impairs the individuals ability to be upwardly mobile (social selection). Research on this issue is far from definitive, especially for less severe types of symptomatology. The causal question is reformulated here in terms of the possible outcomes of a causal analysis of panel data. Based on data from two studies which each measure SES and psychological disorder symptomatology at multiple points in time, results from estimating a series of panel models incorporating unobserved variable specifications of both SES and disorder favor a social causation interpretation. However, differences in results across samples suggest that some modification of the simple social causation position may be necessary.

The Neighbourhood Effects on Health and Well-being (NEHW) study.

Many cross-sectional studies of neighbourhood effects on health do not employ strong study design elements. The Neighbourhood Effects on Health and Well-being (NEHW) study, a random sample of 2412 English-speaking Toronto residents (age 25-64), utilises strong design features for sampling neighbourhoods and individuals, characterising neighbourhoods using a variety of data sources, measuring a wide range of health outcomes, and for analysing cross-level interactions. We describe here methodological issues that shaped the design and analysis features of the NEHW study to ensure that, while a cross-sectional sample, it will advance the quality of evidence emerging from observational studies.

Social Stress in the Twenty-First Century

After we review the basic distinctions among types of stress, and between the biological and engineering models for stress, we elaborate a two-way classification of stressors, based on the chronicity of the stressor and the level of social context at which the stressor occurs. This classification allows a conceptual map of most of the kinds of events and social conditions commonly thought of as stressors. We consider the development of stress research since 2000, with special attention given to the impact of macroevents such as 9/11 on the direction of stress research. We argue that these events have especially directed attention to the study of contextual stressors and traumatic stressors. At the same time, there has also been a steady increase in the study of chronic stressors, in part, due to the affinity between chronic stress and related concepts that echo the problem of structurally based continuous stress—“stress in other words.”

Advances in the Conceptualization of the Stress Process

Conceptual and Methodological Developments.- Understanding Health Disparities: The Promise of the Stress Process Model.- Compensatory Coping with Stressors.- Neighborhood as a Social Context of the Stress Process.- Suppression Effects in Social Stress Research and Their Implications for the Stress Process Model.- Stress Processes in Social Roles and Contexts: Family and Work.- Family Structure and Womens Lives: A Life Course Perspective.- The Stress Process Model: Some Family-Level Considerations.- Linking Early Family Adversity to Young Adult Mental Disorders.- Work, Family, and Their Intersection.- Psychosocial Concepts and Processes.- Sense of Mattering in Late Life.- Its Tough to Cope in Rural Mali: Financial Coping Style, Mastery, Self Confidence, and Anxiety in a Bad and Worsening Socioeconomic Environment.- Stress Valuation and the Experience of Parenting Stress in Late Life.- Stress Process Applications in Child Victimization Research.- The Evolution of the Stress Process Paradigm.- The Stress Process as a Successful Paradigm.