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B E Compas

Publications and source records attributed to B E Compas.

At least 37 records · Page 2Linked to original sources

The relation among stress, psychological symptoms, and eating disorder symptoms: a prospective analysis.

Prior research has shown that psychopathology and stress are associated with eating disorder symptoms, but the relations among these variables were confounded by concurrent measurement at a single point in time. The present study examined the relations among stress, psychological, and eating disorder symptoms prospectively over 4 months in 143 adolescent girls. In cross-sectional analyses at follow-up, controlling for baseline levels, stress and eating disorder symptoms each predicted changes in the other. Eating disorder symptoms were not predicted by psychological symptoms nor vice versa. Stress was predicted by eating disorder symptoms from the first assessment to follow-up. On balance, the results are somewhat stronger for the argument that eating disorder symptoms are predictive of subsequent psychological stress over short periods of time.

Adolescent↗

Adolescent stress and coping: implications for psychopathology during adolescence.

Stressful experiences and efforts to cope with stress are central to understanding psychological distress and psychopathology during adolescence. Depressive phenomena during adolescence offer a particularly interesting opportunity for understanding the role of stress and coping processes in adolescent psychopathology. Research concerned with stress and coping during adolescence is reviewed, using depression as a key example of a consequence of stress and coping processes. Based on this research, it is hypothesized that exposure to and appraisals of interpersonal stress combine with aspects of biological development and the use of maladaptive coping strategies to account for the emergence of significant gender differences in depression and other forms of psychopathology during adolescence. Directions for future research in this area are highlighted.

Adaptation, Psychological↗

Depression in adolescence.

Adolescence is an important developmental period for understanding the nature, course, and treatment of depression. Recent research concerned with depressive mood, syndromes, and disorders during adolescence is reviewed, including investigations of the prevalence, course, risk factors, and prevention and treatment programs for each of these three levels of depressive phenomena in adolescence. A broad biopsychosocial perspective on adolescent depression is recommended, and possible directions for future integrative research are proposed. Based on current research and knowledge, implications for research, program, and national policy are considered.

Adolescent↗

Taxonomy, assessment, and diagnosis of depression during adolescence.

Research on depressive phenomena during adolescence has focused on 3 separate constructs: depressed mood, depressive syndromes, and depressive disorders. Approaches to the assessment, taxonomy, and diagnosis of these 3 conceptualizations are reviewed. Each of the approaches is represented by different assessment tools measuring related but distinct aspects of depressive phenomena. The constructs share a common set of symptoms reflecting negative affectivity but differ in their inclusion of symptoms of anxiety, somatic problems, and disrupted concentration and in the duration and severity of the symptoms they include. Depressed mood, syndromes, and disorders are integrated as 3 levels of depressive phenomena in a hierarchical and sequential model, and moderating factors are hypothesized to account for the relationships among the 3 levels. The need for a stronger developmental focus to understand depressive phenomena during adolescence is emphasized.

Adolescent↗

The role of fathers in child and adolescent psychopathology: make room for daddy.

This review summarizes research concerning the relation between paternal factors and child and adolescent psychopathology. When compared with mothers, fathers continue to be dramatically underrepresented in developmental research on psychopathology. However, findings from studies of children of clinically referred fathers and nonreferred samples of children and their fathers indicate that there is substantial association between paternal characteristics and child and adolescent psychopathology. Findings from studies of fathers of clinically referred children are stronger for fathers' effects on children's externalizing than internalizing problems. In most cases the degree of risk associated with paternal psychopathology is comparable to that associated with maternal psychopathology. Evidence indicates that the presence of paternal psychopathology is a sufficient but not necessary condition for child or adolescent psychopathology.

Adolescent↗

Correlates of internalizing and externalizing behavior problems: perceived competence, causal attributions, and parental symptoms.

Young adolescents in the clinical range on internalizing, externalizing, and both internalizing and externalizing behavior problems, as well as youth in the normal range on both types of problems, were identified separately using adolescents' self-reports and mothers' reports of behavior problems. In comparisons of groups identified on the basis of either type of informant, differences among the four groups were found in adolescents' self-perceptions of competence and in their fathers' psychological symptoms. Specifically, normals reported a more positive sense of their social acceptance and their behavioral conduct than all clinical groups, and fathers of adolescents in the clinical range on both internalizing and externalizing problems tended to report more psychological symptoms than the fathers of the normal group. Differences were found in mothers' psychological symptoms only when mothers' reports of adolescents' behavior problems were used to identify the groups. No consistent differences among the groups were found on adolescents' causal attributions for success and failure.

Adolescent↗

Stress, coping, and adjustment in mothers and young adolescents in single- and two-parent families.

Compared stress, coping, and psychological adjustment in single (divorced or separated) and married mothers and their young adolescent children. Single mothers reported more daily hassles related to economic, family, and personal health problems, and more symptoms of depression, anxiety, and psychoticism. Single mothers also reported using more coping strategies related to accepting responsibility and positive reappraisal. After controlling for level of family income, differences in family hassles and coping strategies remained significant. The two groups did not differ on subtypes of symptoms after controlling for income, but single mothers still reported more total psychological symptoms. No differences were found between children in these two family constellations on maternal reports of emotional/behavioral problems or on children's self-reported emotional/behavioral problems, stressful events, or coping. Implications of these findings for adjustment to life in single-parent families are discussed.

Adaptation, Psychological↗

Gender, instrumentality, and expressivity: moderators of the relation between stress and psychological symptoms during adolescence.

Examined the roles of gender, instrumentality, and expressivity as moderator of the relations between stressful events and psychological symptoms in samples of junior high (n = 93), senior high (n = 140), and college students (n = 145). Female adolescents in all three samples reported more overall negative events than did males. Females in the junior and senior high samples reported more negative interpersonal stresses than did males. However, there were no indications in any of the samples of a stronger relation between negative events and psychological symptoms for adolescent females than males. Further, there was little evidence that instrumentality or expressivity moderated the relations between negative events and psychological symptoms. In each sample, certain stresses were most strongly related to psychological symptoms: family stresses in the junior high, peer stresses in the senior high, and academic stresses in the college sample. Implications of the findings for developmental changes in stress during adolescence are discussed.

Adaptation, Psychological↗

Children's and parents' daily stressful events and psychological symptoms.

Associations of children's daily stressful events and their parents' daily hassles and psychological symptoms with children's emotional/behavioral problems were examined in a sample of fourth- and fifth-grade children and their parents. Correlational analyses indicated that children's self-reports of depressive symptoms were associated with children's daily stressors and mothers' daily hassles, and children's self-reports of anxiety symptoms were associated with children's daily stressors and both mothers' and fathers' daily hassles. Mothers' and fathers' reports of their children's internalizing emotional/behavioral problems were correlated with mothers' and fathers' daily stressors and symptoms. Hierarchical multiple-regression analyses revealed that (a) children's self-reports of depressive symptoms were associated with children's daily stressors, (b) children's self-reports of anxiety symptoms were associated with their parents' daily hassles, (c) mothers' reports of their children's internalizing emotional/behavioral problems were marginally associated with parents' symptoms, and (d) fathers' reports of their children's internalizing emotional/behavioral problems were associated with parents' symptoms and children's self-reports of daily stressors.

Adaptation, Psychological↗

Adolescents' subjective distress over their emotional/behavioral problems.

This study analyzed the relations among 151 7th- and 8th-grade adolescents' self-evaluations of the occurrence of their behavior, their own subjective distress over their behavior, their perceptions of their personal competence, their perceptions of their mothers' and fathers' distress over these behaviors, and their parents' reports of the occurrence of adolescent behaviors. As hypothesized, adolescents' self-reports of occurrence of their behaviors were significantly but moderately correlated with their subjective distress about these behaviors, and adolescents made a distinction between the occurrence of a behavior and their distress about it. Externalizing behaviors were rated by adolescents as more distressing to mothers and to fathers than to adolescents themselves, and conversely, internalizing behaviors were rated as more distressing to self than to parents. Ratings of subjective distress were significantly related to self-perceptions of behavioral conduct and self-worth, whereas parents' ratings of the occurrence of behavior were not related to these self-perceptions.

Adolescent↗

The problem of confounding social support and depressive symptoms: a brief report on a college sample.

The problem of confounding social support and depressive symptoms was addressed by examining the convergent and discriminant validity of interview and questionnaire measures of social support and depression using the multitrait-multimethod matrix approach. Participants were 40 late-adolescent college students with half the sample selected on the basis of mild to moderate scores on self-reported depressive symptoms. Measures of depression displayed excellent convergent and discriminant validity, and measures of objective features of social networks were found to have moderate convergent and discriminant validity. However, the subjective measures of satisfaction with social support used were found to have neither adequate convergent nor discriminant validity. Implications for the conceptualization and assessment of social support are highlighted.

Adolescent↗

Risk factors for emotional/behavioral problems in young adolescents: a prospective analysis of adolescent and parental stress and symptoms.

Stressful events in the lives of 309 10- to 15-year-olds and stressful events and psychological symptoms reported by their parents were examined in a 9-month study. Ss' self-reported emotional/behavioral problems were predicted by their reports of stressful events and their fathers' reports of psychological symptoms in cross-sectional analyses. Analyses at follow-up after controlling for initial reports of emotional/behavioral problems and prospective analyses predicting from first assessment to follow-up yielded significant effects for Ss' self-reported stressful events. Mothers' reports of children's problems were predicted by mothers' psychological symptoms in cross-sectional analyses and at follow-up after controlling for initial emotional/behavioral problems. Only prior levels of maternal reports of emotional/behavioral problems predicted mothers' reports of their children's problems 9 months later.

Adolescent↗

Daily and major life events: a test of an integrative model of psychosocial stress.

The hypothesis that negative daily events mediate the relationship between major negative events and psychological symptomatology was tested using a three-wave, three-variable panel design. Measures of major and daily life events and psychological symptomatology were administered to 58 older adolescents at three time points during the transition from high school to college. The results indicated that the pathways from major life events to daily events and from daily events to psychological symptomatology were significant at each of the time points, but that the direct pathways from major events to psychological symptomatology were not significant at any time point. Thus, the hypothesis was fully supported. The findings are discussed in light of their implications for an integrative theory of the process by which major and daily events have an effect on psychological symptomatology.

Adaptation, Psychological↗

A prospective study of life events, social support, and psychological symptomatology during the transition from high school to college.

Life events, perceived social support, and psychological symptoms were studied prospectively among older adolescents during the transition from high school to college. These variables were reciprocally related to one another in patterns which changed over a period of 6 months. The findings are supportive of a transactional model of stress that emphasizes reciprocal, rather than linear, paths of influence. Further, the study highlights the importance of studying stress and social support during life transitions that may constitute periods of greater vulnerability to life events.

Adaptation, Psychological↗

Characteristics of life events during adolescence.

Two studies of the characteristics of life events during adolescence are reported. In the first, open-ended reports of major life events and daily events were obtained from early, middle, and late adolescents. Analyses of the frequency of past events perceived as positive versus negative revealed effects for type of event (major vs. daily), age, and gender. In contrast, anticipated events were perceived similarly across age and gender. The second study examined judgments by older adolescents of the valence, type, and domain of life events. Consensus regarding these characteristics was achieved on only a small portion of events. The implications of these findings for the measurement of life events during adolescence are highlighted.

Adaptation, Psychological↗

Parent and child causal attributions during clinical interviews.

Attributions made by children and their parents for the cause of the child's clinical problem were monitored during assessment interviews. Results support previously observed differences obtained through questionnaires, with parents making more attributions than their children to characteristics of the child. This pattern was affected by variations in interview format. Parents and children differed in the locus of their attributions when interviewed individually, but these differences were not present when families were interviewed with both parents and children present. Implications for the methodology of attribution research with child-clinical populations are highlighted.

Adolescent↗