Where Does Debt Fit in the Stress Process Model?
Thoughts
Connects with: @butterworth2009 @kahn2006
Annotations
drentea2015 - p. 1
The stress process model (Pearlin 1989; Thoits 1995; Turner 2013) begins with the premise that stressors are socially patterned, that exposure to events and relationships that influence mental health is strongly shaped by causally prior advantages and disadvantages associated with one’s race, gender, age, income, etc. In turn, exposure to stress, such as the threat of being fired or constantly worrying about money, affects mental health. In addition, the stress may be lessened by one’s levels of social and personal resources (i.e., social support, coping). Finally, social and personal resources can also buffer or protect individuals from the negative consequences of stress exposure
drentea2015 - p. 6
Feelings of anxiety.—Anxiety is measured with five items that constitute a subset of the 20-item State Anxiety Inventory (Spielberger et al. 1983). The scale of anxiety equals the sum of scores (α = .87
drentea2015 - p. 6
Anger.—Six items drawn from Petersen and Kellam’s (1977) “How I Feel” instrument assessed recent feelings and expressions of anger. The respondents were asked to what extent the following statements reflected how they felt over the past month: “When I get angry, I stay angry;” “I yell at people;” “I feel like I am boiling inside;” “I lose my temper;” “I feel angry;” and “I get into fights and arguments.” Responses included very much like me (4), much like me (3), somewhat like me (2), not much like me (1), and not like me at all (0), (α =.88). Responses to the six items were summed.
drentea2015 - p. 6
Economic hardship.—A scale was created from four items that asked, “When you think of your financial situation overall, how difficult is it for you to meet the following needs?” where the needs included housing, food, transportation, and medical expenses. Responses to each type of need included not at all difficult (coded 0), somewhat difficult (1), and very difficult (2). When combined into a scale equal to the average of the four responses, Cronbach’s α is .82.
drentea2015 - p. 6
Debtor status.—Respondents were asked if they had “any debts including credit cards, store credit, a mortgage or home equity loan, a car loan or any other loan?”
drentea2015 - p. 6
Mastery.—The scale of mastery is made up of seven questions asking respondents if they agreed or disagreed with statements such as, “What happens to you in the future mostly depends on you” and “You often feel helpless in dealing with problems of life” (Pearlin and Schooler 1978). Responses range from “strongly agree” to “strongly disagree” and are coded such that higher scores indicate more control. Mastery is equal to the average of the seven items (α = .77).
drentea2015 - p. 6
Support.—Social support is assessed with two scales capturing perceived social support from friends and from family (Turner and Marino 1994). Respondents were asked about these relationships, separately for family members and friends, with eight items such as “No matter what happens you know that your [family/friends] will always be there for you should you need them” and “You feel very close to your [family/friends].” Responses included “very true,” (3) “moderately true,” (2) “somewhat true,” (1) and “not at all true” Family support (α = .90) and friend support (α = .95) are equal to the average response for the respective eight items.
drentea2015 - p. 7
ncome.—Respondents were asked to estimate their total household income before taxes, choosing from among 16 categories ranging from none, to $135,000 and above (in Table 1 we combined the two highest categories for low-N reasons
drentea2015 - p. 7
Assets.—Respondents were asked “Suppose you needed money quickly, and you cashed in all of your checking and savings accounts, your stocks and bonds and real estate (other than your home). If you added up what you got, about how much would this amount to?
drentea2015 - p. 7
Homeownership and home value.—We identify homeowners with a dichotomous measure (1=owns home), and include a self-reported estimate of the value of the home (respondents were asked how much money they would get for their home if they sold it) Depressive symptoms.—We used a 20-item version of the CES-D (Radloff 1977) to assess recent symptoms of depression. Study subjects were asked how often in the past month they experienced feelings such as loneliness, sadness, and hopelessness CES-D Depressive symptoms is equal to the sum of scores across the 20 items (Cronbach’s α = .88).
drentea2015 - p. 9
adults in debt have elevated levels of depressive symptoms, anxiety and anger, with a magnitude of around .9 to .6 (or, .1 to .15 standard deviations) relative to debt-free adults.
drentea2015 - p. 10
the negative emotional costs of debt are not the same as those of economic strain