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Biomedical subjects

B J Felton

Publications and source records attributed to B J Felton.

12 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed1992

Groups as social network members: overlooked sources of social support.

In a study of the link between physical disability and social relationships among the elderly, questions about social network and social support evoked a surprisingly large number of group responses. People mentioned "my grandchildren," "the people in my building," "people at the senior center," and other groups in ways that suggested that the real unit of support was extraindividual and could not be accurately understood by reference to individual people within those groups. This paper describes the frequency of such responses and the circumstances under which they emerged. Definitions of social support and of social network should not be restricted to dyadic relationships between individuals; better understanding of social support processes would derive from consideration of the kinds of social support functions best offered by groups vs. individuals and consideration of differences in the ways in which support is derived from groups and individuals.

Aged↗
PubMed1992

Do the sources of the urban elderly's social support determine its psychological consequences?

This article examines whether the psychological impact of different kinds of social supports varies according to who provides them. Data on 82 older adults' social relationships, measured as social provisions (Weiss, 1974), were used to evaluate whether the relationship between social provisions and emotional well-being varied when kin and, alternatively, nonkin, made the provisions. Findings showed that, although most social provisions were valuable regardless of their source, reassurance of worth was distinctly more beneficial when provided by nonkin than by kin, and reliable alliance, or instrumental assistance, was more strongly related to well-being when provided by kin than by nonkin. Analysis of social network structure showed that "multiplexity" was negatively related to well-being, and having duplicate providers for a given social provision was uniquely important in offsetting negative affect.

Activities of Daily Living↗
PubMed1989

Disability and coping as predictors of psychological adjustment to rheumatoid arthritis.

Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) patients have been identified as a medical population at risk for psychological disorder, largely because of the pain and functional disability that are the hallmarks of the disease. This study examined the degree to which self-reported functional disability and coping efforts contribute to psychological adjustment among adult RA patients over a 6-month period. Adaptive outcomes included maintaining a sense of worth, mastery, and positive affect despite the illness. Hierarchical multiple regression analyses indicated that increases in disability were related to decreased acceptance of illness and increased negative affect. Coping efforts were related to increases in positive affect. The findings provide modest support for the role individual coping efforts play in shaping illness-related outcomes. Although disability is not easily reversed, knowledge about coping strategies that moderate its psychological impact may provide a useful basis for designing psychological interventions to promote adjustment.

Adaptation, Psychological↗
PubMed1987

Age differences in coping with chronic illness.

We examined the correlation between age and six coping strategies in a sample of 151 middle-aged and older chronically ill adults. Coping strategies included cognitive restructuring, emotional expression, wish fulfilling fantasy, self-blame, information seeking, and threat minimization. Older adults were less likely to use emotional expression or information seeking than were middle-aged adults in their efforts to cope with the illness. These strategies were related to age even when numerous illness characteristics (e.g., physical limitations) were used as control variables. Interaction effects showed that older adults who perceived their illnesses as highly serious were less likely than were others to cope by seeking information, reconstruing their illness as having positive aspects, or engaging in wishfulfilling fantasies, and more likely to cope by simply minimizing the illness's threat. Consideration of related research studies suggests that the age differences in emotional expression may be due to age-related shifts in the types of stresses experienced, whereas the age differences in information seeking may be more strongly linked to cohort phenomena.

Adaptation, Psychological↗
PubMed1987

Cohort variation in happiness: some hypotheses and exploratory analyses.

Research on historical and age differences in well-being suggests that cohort factors explain at least part of the variation in adults' reports of well-being. Theoretical arguments suggest that it is the bases of people's evaluations of their well-being that reflect the characteristic socializing influences of their cohort. Portraits of two cohorts of older adults are drawn from historical and sociological sources and hypotheses about cohort-specific values are tested with data collected by Veroff and his colleagues in 1957 and 1976. Findings do not support the idea that happiness among the adults who produced the post-World War II baby boom is uniquely linked to concerns with marriage and children. Results do provide partial support for the view that adults born before 1900 are distinctive from other cohorts in that their happiness levels are more closely linked with survival needs and more firmly wedded to Protestant ethic values.

Adult↗
PubMed1984

Stress and coping in the explanation of psychological adjustment among chronically ill adults.

This study evaluates the utility of a stress and coping paradigm for explaining individual differences in psychological adjustment to chronic illness. Using data from the first wave of a longitudinal study of 170 middle-aged and elderly adults faced with one of four chronic illnesses (hypertension, diabetes mellitus, cancer and rheumatoid arthritis), this paper examines the relationship between the stresses of chronic illness and coping, and the ability of coping to explain psychological adjustment. Results show coping strategy use tends to be minimally explained by medical diagnosis. Cognitive strategies, including information seeking, are related to positive affect while emotional strategies, particularly those involving avoidance, blame and emotional ventilation, are related to negative affect, lowered self-esteem and poorer adjustment to illness. While the findings suggest that a stress and coping model may be valuable in understanding adjustment among the chronically ill, the general modesty of coping effects and the failure of the stress buffering hypothesis to explain adjustment indicates a need for new research approaches and some modification of current theories of coping.

Adaptation, Psychological↗
PubMed1983

Social supports as stress buffers for adult cancer patients.

Although a growing body of research evidence suggests that persons encountering stressful life circumstances are protected from potential declines in health and well-being by supportive relationships, the evidence for the stress-buffering qualities of social support for cancer patients is equivocal. This study examines the relationship between naturally occurring, supportive behaviors and psychological adjustment to the illness for 32 nonhospitalized adult cancer patients, and includes follow-up data collected 7 months after the initial interview. Results indicated that although support appeared to have few effects on adjustment at either time point for the sample as a whole, social support was related to poorer adjustment for patients not undergoing chemotherapy or radiation treatments, or for those with many limitations on physical functioning. These findings, though tentative because of the sample size, point to the need to consider the specific contextual stresses the cancer patient is experiencing in evaluating psychosocial adjustment to the illness, and suggest caution in assuming social supports to be a universal boon.

Aged↗
PubMed1981

Urban-suburban differences in the predictors of morale among the aged.

Research on the habitability of the city for older people and research on the predictors of well-being have led to the search for patterns of adaptation which distinguish the urban elderly adults from their non-urban counterparts. This study compares neighborhood perceptions and use and social network involvement in an urban and suburban sample of older people. Differences in patterns of adaptation characteristic of urban and suburban elderly adults were sought by comparing the ability of neighborhood and social network factors to predict morale in each sample. Results revealed differences in urban and suburban elderly adults' perceptions and use of neighborhood facilities. Urban older people reported more frequent interactions with friends, greater dissatisfaction with friendships and greater organizational participation. Informal social relationships were related to elderly urbanites' morale but had practically no bearing on suburbanites' morale. Differences in cultural heterogeneity and environmental demand seem to provide the best explanation for the findings.

Aged↗
PubMed1980

Two-way television: an experiment in interactive programming for the elderly.

This study was conducted to 1) assess the effectiveness of an experimental two-way cable TV system in reaching the older people for whom it was designed, and 2) assess the attraction of this locally-based age-targeted system for its viewers. The study evaluates the system's effectiveness in reaching its target audience by examining information about the types of viewers--both younger and older--who have been attracted to the system. In addition, differences in factors that predict viewing frequency for younger and older people are used to illuminate life stage differences in people's attraction to locally-based TV programming. Findings show that the system had successfully reached its target audience within two years of inception. Watching the interactive TV programs because of the system's provision of information about local events and because of the senior citizens' focus strongly predicted viewing frequency for both older and younger respondents. The ability of locally-based interactive TV programming to serve social and informational needs of older people which are unmet by traditional broadcast television is discussed.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1980

Alternative models of person-environment fit: prediction of morale in three homes for the aged.

The notion of congruence or P-E fit has been suggested as a fruitful theoretical scheme for the understanding of the impact of environments on the well-being of older people (French et al., 1974; Kahana, 1975). Alternative models have been proposed for understanding the type of congruence which results in the most positive outcomes. Such models have differential implications for intervention to enhance well-being of the aged. This paper represents an initial effort to put these alternative theoretical models to an empirical test. Data for this study came from 124 interviews at three homes for the aged. In order to overcome methodological problems posed by conventional approaches, a procedure which measures incongruence in terms of non-linear transformations of difference scores was used. Congruence models examined included non-directional, one-directional, and two-directional models. The findings point to the importance of P-E fit in the arenas of congregation, impulse control, and segregation. In contrast, personal and/or environmental characteristics rather than fit were found to be more important along the dimensions of affective expression and institutional control in explaning morale.

Adaptation, Psychological↗