This study investigated whether non- or occasional drinkers' changes in drinking habits during a one-year period were related to psychological distress. Overall, 2,495 non- or occasional drinking employees (2,109 men and 386 women) completed a self-administered questionnaire measuring alcohol intake, psychological distress (12-item General Health Questionnaire), and demographic characteristics ...

PURPOSE To examine the relationship between exposure to chronic community violence and upper respiratory illness (URI) symptoms among urban adolescents of color; and to test the generality of a model of the relationship between social stress and URI. METHOD The research used a cross-sectional correlational design. The sample was 769 first-semester first-year students in an urban nonresidentia...

The goal of this study was to develop and test a sequential mediational model explaining the negative relationship of passive leadership to employee well-being. Based on role stress theory, we posit that passive leadership will predict higher levels of role ambiguity, role conflict and role overload. Invoking Conservation of Resources theory, we further hypothesize that these role stressors wil...

Institutional review boards (IRBs) have expressed concerns that certain individuals or groups, such as participants who are younger, ethnic minorities, or who have certain psychological or personality traits, may be particularly distressed when participating in "sensitive topics" research. This study examined the effects of several demographic and individual difference factors (i.e., age, sex, ...

In 3 studies, the authors investigated the functional role of psychological resilience and positive emotions in the stress process. Studies 1a and 1b explored naturally occurring daily stressors. Study 2 examined data from a sample of recently bereaved widows. Across studies, multilevel random coefficient modeling analyses revealed that the occurrence of daily positive emotions serves to modera...

This study investigated whether the stress of caregiving alters cellular immune responses to acute psychological stressors. Twenty-seven women caring for a spouse with a progressive dementia (high chronic stress) and 37 controls matched for age and family income performed a 12-min laboratory stressor. Cellular immune function was assessed by both functional and quantitative measures taken befor...

The developing HPA axis is under strong social regulation in infancy and early childhood and is vulnerable to perturbation in the absence of sensitive, responsive caregiving. Child maltreatment has complex, long-term influences both on basal cortisol levels and on HPA responsivity to pharmacological and psychological stressors, depending on current psychiatric status, current life adversity, ag...