Financial Hardship, Social Support, and Perceived Stress
Thoughts
Connects with: @aslund2014 @oneill2006 @prawitz2006
Annotations
park2017 - p. 322
This study was framed with the following two outcomes in mind: to examine the association between financial hardship and perceived stress at the household level, and to determine how social support and perceived stress are related. In this study, financial hardship was thought to increase perceptions of stress, whereas social support was anticipated to play an intervening role between perception of situation and perceived stress.
park2017 - p. 322
The financial hardship and stress research, although quite extensive, is still limited when defining the linkage between financial stressors—precursors to a stress reaction—and the stress reaction itself. Nearly all papers published in the personal and consumer finance domain have been built on the assumption that financial stress is synonymous with financial hardship, financial strain, and economic pressure.
park2017 - p. 323
Terms such as stressors, stress reactions, coping resources, and coping strategies have been used to define the elements that are frequently discussed in theories of stress.
park2017 - p. 323
Dollahite (1991) argued that one’s perception of stress is determined by the incorporated interactions among certain components, such as stressors, coping resources, definitions of the situation, and demands of the situation. This indicates that a stressor may not induce stress consistently or universally. Rather, a stressor can be conceptualized as an event that causes a stress reaction, which is a state of physiological or emotional arousal resulting from the perception of the stressor (Thoits, 1995).
park2017 - p. 323
For example, financial stressors, such as loss of household resources, have been found to be linked to higher levels of depressive symptoms, psychological distress, and financial strain (Choi et al., 2016; Chou, Chi, & Chow, 2004; Clark-Lempers, Lempers, & Netusil, 1990; Ennis, Hobfoll, & Schröder, 2000; Hope, Power, & Rodgers, 1999; O’Neill, Prawitz, Sorhaindo, Kim, & Garman, 2006).
park2017 - p. 323
Given the diverse ways financial hardship has been conceptualized in the literature, a beginning step in this study was to determine a reference point for financial hardship. This reference point was needed to help clarify the difference between financial hardship (i.e., a stressor) and perception of one’s financial situation (i.e., perception of one or more stressors).
park2017 - p. 323
Rettig, Danes, and Leichtentritt (1997), for instance, pointed out that it was the perception of low income adequacy, not low income itself, that influenced the psychological well-being of their study respondents.
park2017 - p. 323
Armstrong and Schulman (1990) and Vinokur et al. (1996) conceptualized financial hardship as a two-part construct measured objectively (i.e., debt-to-asset ratio and scarcity of financial resources) and subjectively (i.e., perceived economic hardship and subjective appraisal of financial situation). In their study, the objective financial condition had a positive effect on depression through perceived economic hardship.
park2017 - p. 323
(a) an individual’s disadvantageous financial condition for the former
park2017 - p. 324
In this study, stressors were defined as being financial hardship factors. A financial hardship factor was framed as a state or situation that reflects a financial deficit either objectively or subjectively.
park2017 - p. 325
Data were obtained from the second wave of the National Survey of Midlife Development in the United States (MIDUS). The objective of the MIDUS data collection project was to gather records to investigate the role of behavioral, psychological, and social factors in understanding age-related differences in physical and mental health.
park2017 - p. 325
Financial Hardship. Financial hardship was conceptualized as a latent variable composed of three items: (a) respondents’ reported financial difficulty level in paying bills every month, (b) respondents’ reported financial deficit when making ends meet, and (c) whether or not a household had received government assistance. A one-item 4-point Likert-type question was used to extract the degree of difficulty associated with paying monthly bills. Having a financial deficit when making ends meet was evaluated using an item having three qualitative choice levels. Information on receiving governmental assistance was also measured.
park2017 - p. 326
Perception of Situation. Perception of situation was also modeled as a latent variable composed of three items: (a) respondents’ dissatisfaction with their current financial situation, (b) respondents’ inability to control their current financial situation, and (c) holding a negative perspective toward their future financial situation. These variables were grouped together because the items represented negative personal evaluations resulting from the degree of financial hardship experienced by each respondent.
park2017 - p. 326
Social Support. Social support, as a latent construct, was developed using three items: (a) family support, (b) friend support, and (c) spouse support. Data were obtained from the family support, friend support, and spouse support scale, which uses a four-point Likert-type method to measure responses.
park2017 - p. 327
Perceived Stress. Perceived stress was measured as a component of the Project IV data collection process. Perceived stress was evaluated using a subjective stress scale. The stress scale consisted of 10 questions measured with a 5-point Likert-type scale. The following are examples of questions included in the scale: (a) “In the last month, how often have you felt difficulties were piling up so high that you couldn’t overcome them?” (b) “How often have you felt nervous and stressed?” and (c) “How often have you been angered because of things that were outside of your control?”
park2017 - p. 327
The summary model statistics were x2(30) 5 68.824, p , .001, RMSEA 5 .043, CFI 5 .980, TLI 5 .970, and SRMR 5 .028.
park2017 - p. 328
The Cronbach’s alpha coefficient for financial hardship, perception of situation, and social support was 0.62, 0.78, and 0.56, respectively. Although the alpha coefficients were low relative to some scaling benchmarks, the actual latent variables developed in the model were more robust.