Stress and Adversity over the Life Course: Trajectories and Turning Points

309 Pages·1997·6.69 MB·English

by  Ian H. Gotlib

Stress and adversity over the life course

Stress and adversity
over the life course
Trajectories and turning points
Edited by
IAN H. GOTLIB BLAIR WHEATON
Stanford University University of Toronto
CAMBRIDGE
UNIVERSITY PRESS
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© Cambridge University Press 1997
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no reproduction of any part may take place without
the written permission of Cambridge University Press.
First published 1997
This digitally printed first paperback version 2006
A catalogue record for this publication is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloguing in Publication data
Stress and adversity over the life course : trajectories and turning
points / edited by Ian H. Gotlib, Blair Wheaton.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN 0-521-55075-0
1. Stress (Psychology) 2. Life cycle, Human — Effect of stress on.
I. Gotlib, Ian H. II. Wheaton, Blair.
BF575.S75S754 1997
155.9'042-dc21 96-45176
CIP
ISBN-13 978-0-521-55075-8 hardback
ISBN-10 0-521-55075-0 hardback
ISBN-13 978-0-521-02971-1 paperback
ISBN-10 0-521-02971-6 paperback
Contents
List of contributors page vii
1 Trajectories and turning points over the life course:
concepts and themes 1
Blair Wheaton & Ian H. Gotlib
1 Trajectories: long-term effects of adverse experience
2 Childhood adversity and adult psychopathology 29
Ronald C. Kessler, Jacquelyn Gillis-Light,
William J. Magee, Kenneth S. Kendler, & Lindon J. Eaves
3 The impact of twenty childhood and adult traumatic
stressors on the risk of psychiatric disorder 50
Blair Wheaton, Patricia Roszell, & Kimberlee Hall
4 Intergenerational sanction sequences and trajectories of
street-crime amplification 73
John Hagan & Bill McCarthy
5 School-leavers' self-esteem and unemployment: turning point
or a station on a trajectory? 91
David Dooley & Jo Ann Prause
6 Intergenerational consequences of social stressors: effects
of occupational and family conditions on young mothers
and their children 114
Elizabeth G. Menaghan
1 Women's roles and resilience: trajectories of advantage or
turning points? 133
Phyllis Moen
II Turning points: changes in life trajectories
8 Becoming unsupervised: children's transitions from
adult-care to self-care in the afterschool hours 159
Deborah Belle, Sara Norell, & Anthony Lewis
vi Contents
9 Children whose parents divorce: life trajectories and
turning points 179
Donald Wertlieb
10 Life after high school: development, stress, and well-being 197
Susan Gore, Robert Aseltine, Jr., Mary Ellen Colten,
& Bin Lin
11 Turning points in midlife 215
Elaine Wethington, Hope Cooper, & Carolyn S. Holmes
12 Adaptation to retirement 232
Robert S. Weiss
III New methods for the study of the life course
13 Construction and use of the life history calendar: reliability
and validity of recall data 249
Nan Lin, Walter M. Ensel, & Wan-foon Gina Lai
14 Using discrete-time survival analysis to study event
occurrence across the life course 273
John B. Willett & Judith D. Singer
Index 295
Contributors
Robert Aseltine, Jr. Center for Survey Research, University of Massachusetts - Boston
Deborah Belle Department of Psychology, Boston University
Mary Ellen Colten Center for Survey Research, University of Massachusetts - Boston
Hope Cooper Human Development and Family Studies, Cornell University
David Dooley School of Social Ecology, University of Calif ornia - Irvine
Lindon J. Eaves Department of Human Genetics, Virginia Commonwealth University
Walter M. Ensel Department of Sociology, State University of New York - Albany
Jacquelyn Gillis-Light Department of Psychology, Kalamazoo College
Susan Gore Department of Sociology, University of Massachusetts - Boston
Ian H. Gotlib Department of Psychology, Stanford University
John Hagan Department of Sociology, University of Toronto
Kimberlee Hall Department of Sociology, University of Toronto
Carolyn S. Holmes Department of Sociology, University of Michigan
Kenneth S. Kendler Department of Psychiatry, Virginia Commonwealth University
Ronald C. Kessler Department of Health Care Policy, Harvard Medical School
Wan-foon Gina Lai Department of Sociology, National Singapore University
Anthony Lewis Arizona Boys Ranch
Bin Lin Center for Survey Reserch, University of Massachusetts - Boston
Nan Lin Department of Sociology, Duke University
William J. Magee Department of Sociology, University of Toronto
Bill McCarthy Department of Sociology, University of Victoria
Elizabeth G. Menaghan Department of Sociology, Ohio State University
Phyllis Moen Human Development and Family Studies, Cornell University
Sara Norell Department of Psychology, Boston University
Jo Ann Prause School of Social Ecology, University of Calif ornia - Irvine
Patricia Roszell Department of Sociology, University of Toronto
Judith D. Singer Graduate School of Education, Harvard University
Robert S. Weiss Gerontology Institute, University of Massachusetts
Donald Wertlieb Eliot-Pearson Department of Child Study, Tufts University
Elaine Wethington Human Development and Family Studies, Cornell University
Blair Wheaton Department of Sociology, University of Toronto
John B. Willett Graduate School of Education, Harvard University
vii

1 Trajectories and turning points over the
life course: concepts and themes
Blair Wheaton & Ian H. Gotlib
The life course is a path. For most people, this path is far from straight. We use
the ideas of trajectories and turning points to divide the life course into comple-
mentary parts. A trajectory is the continuation of a direction. It is the inertia in
our lives that results from the sum of the forces that propel us toward a desti-
nation. A turning point is a disruption in a trajectory, a deflection in the path.
Indeed, the essential characteristic of a turning point is that it changes the direc-
tion of a trajectory.
The concepts of trajectories and turning points require each other in order
to be understood. If we concentrate on trajectories, it leads naturally to the
question: What intervenes and disturbs these trajectories? What pushes people
away from the path they were on? What puts people back on their former path?
Similarly, we cannot conceive of turning points without denning the trajectory
as the "norm." To see an event or a transition as a turning point requires time,
stability, and an established baseline.
We think most clearly of turning points as "events," as crucially important
moments in a life history. But turning points need not be dramatic events, or un-
usual events, or even a single discrete event. Turning points may be difficult to
see as they are occurring, because they are only recognized to be turning points
as time passes and as it becomes clear that there has been a change in direction.
This fact points to two essential features of turning points: they are more than
temporary detours in the current trajectory, and they are knowable only after
the fact.
It is possible to represent the life course as a road on which we are traveling,
the trajectory component in our lives. Forks in the road represent potential turn-
ing points, but they are not necessarily so. Sometimes, two alternative paths will
actually lead down parallel routes to the same life destination. Thus, every
fork, every choice point, or every alternative presented is not by necessity a po-
tential turning point. Only when an event or circumstance truly takes us in a
new direction, with an altered destination, have we experienced a turning point.
Time is a consideration in denning both trajectories and turning points.
Every perturbation in the life course cannot be considered a new trajectory, or
1
2 BLAIR WHEATON & IAN H. GOTLIB
taken as evidence that a turning point has occurred. Apparent new directions
can sometimes be no more than the equivalent of random error in a time series.
Indeed, there are reasons for small and/or temporary changes in direction that
should not (yet) be seen as evidence of an altered probability of life changes. Al-
though there can be no definitive guidelines concerning how much time must
pass for a new direction to become a new trajectory, there are clues that the
change in direction is more than temporary. These clues could involve any of
the following possibilities: (1) stability of a new direction across life transitions;
(2) resistance to efforts to re-establish a former trajectory; (3) transformation
of identity to accommodate a new trajectory; and (4) evidence of a role com-
mitment implied by a new direction.
Defining concepts
Life-course trajectories
We begin by providing an initial definition of the twin concepts of trajectories
and turning points; this will help to locate these concepts both in existing work
on the life course and in the chapters in this book. A trajectory is the stable com-
ponent of a direction toward a life destination and is characterized by a given
probability of occurrence. A trajectory refers to the tendency to persistence in
life-course patterns, but not necessarily as defined by an unchanging probabil-
ity of a life outcome. Rather, a trajectory can be defined by a linearly increasing
probability over time, by a nonlinearly decreasing probability, or by other com-
binations of these possibilities.
Figure 1 presents a trajectory reflecting a nonlinear increase in the chances of
a life outcome occurring (e.g., marriage, having children, getting a good job)
over time. The figure depicts the nature of the trajectory as a "built-in" process.
For example, the longer the individual stays in school, the more likely it is that
beneficial life outcomes will occur. The trajectory in Figure 1 implies that early
experiences in the life course make a greater difference with respect to this out-
come than will later experiences. This conclusion is reflected by a faster rise in
the curve over childhood and adolescence than at later adult stages, where the
net change is much smaller. This pattern would be typical of a trajectory defined
by early educational performance.
Figure 1 raises a question about life trajectories: Can trajectories be defined
without reference to an endpoint or a destination? We think not. To define or
think of a trajectory in the life course, we must have in mind some endpoint to
which it is leading - in essence, a criterion that reflects a long-term impact of
something that occurred earlier in life. Thus, in this book we consider long-
term impacts on mental health as evidence of the trajectories set in motion by
earlier stressors or, alternatively, by available resources.