The stress process.

TLDR

Involuntary job disruptions illustrate life events that adversely affect enduring role strains and economic strains. This study uses longitudinal data to observe how life events, chronic life strains, self‑concepts, coping, and social supports interact to form a stress process. The authors employ longitudinal data to track the interplay of these factors and how they generate the stress process. Exacerbated strains erode self‑esteem and mastery, increasing vulnerability to depression, while coping and social supports indirectly reduce depression by dampening the stress process.

Abstract

This study uses longitudinal data to observe how life events, chronic life strains, self concepts, coping, and social supports come together to form a process of stress. It takes involuntary job disruptions as illustrating life events and shows how they adversely affect enduring role strains, economic strains in particular. These exacerbated strains, in turn, erode positive concepts of self, such as self-esteem and mastery. The diminished self-concepts then leave one especially vulnerable to experiencing symptoms of stress, of which depression is of special interest to this analysis. The interventions of coping and social supports are mainly indirect; that is, they do not act directly to buffer depression. Instead, they minimize the elevation of depression by dampening the antecedent process.