Probing Resilience: Daily Environmental Mastery, Self-Esteem, and Stress Appraisal.

Objectives: The current study explores one way the process of resilience arises by investigating the underlying process of stress appraisal. In particular, the analyses examine how resilience resources function each day to attenuate the extent to which life experiences are perceived as threatening, and how trait-like resilience resources shape the appraisal process.

Method: Daily diary and questionnaire data from 96 participants of Successful Aging in Context: The Macroenvironment and Daily Lived Experience (SAIC; MAge = 67 years, SDAge = 4.

FINANCIAL STRESS, NEIGHBORHOOD STRESS, AND WELL-BEING: MEDIATIONAL AND MODERATIONAL MODELS.

This study explores whether high quality neighborhoods or social integration have protective effects on psychological well-being, especially in the face of financial challenges. Previous research suggests that low levels of financial stress, lower neighborhood stress, and social integration are each associated with greater levels of well-being; few studies, however, investigate these contextual variables in confluence. Data from the Notre Dame Study of Health and Well-Being were used to investigate whether (a) neighborhood stress mediates the relationship between financial stress and psychological well-being and (b) social integration moderates the relationship between neighborhood stress and psychological well-being.

The self-concept and conjugal loss: evidence for structural change.

The self-concept is often considered to be a personal resource that individuals may use to cope with life stressors, but little is known about how this entity might itself change in response to profound stress. The present study examines structural change in self-concept following conjugal loss in later life. Analyses were conducted on data collected from 57 widows every 4 months over the first 2 years post-loss.

Resilience-as-process: negative affect, stress, and coupled dynamical systems.

Resilience is often considered both a trait and a process. The current study proposes a new way to conceptualize resilience-as-process based on dynamical systems modeling, which allows researchers to capture the process of stress management in real time. Coupled damped linear oscillator models succinctly describe daily stress and negative affect in terms of developmental forces (e.

Using derivative estimates to describe intraindividual variability at multiple time scales.

The study of intraindividual variability is central to the study of individuals in psychology. Previous research has related the variance observed in repeated measurements (time series) of individuals to trait-like measures that are logically related. Intraindividual measures, such as intraindividual standard deviation or the coefficient of variation, are likely to be incomplete representations of intraindividual variability.

Adaptive change in self-concept and well-being during conjugal loss in later life.

The present study examines the association between the self-concept and adaptation to conjugal loss; the primary aim was to explore whether those individuals high in self-esteem, environmental mastery, and optimism have more adaptive resources with which to ameliorate the detrimental sequelae of bereavement. Analyses were conducted on data collected from 58 widows every four months over a two-year period. One goal of the research was to explore the adequacy of the theoretically chosen operational definition of the self-concept; another goal was to analyze how changes in the level of self-concept components correlated with changes in levels of depression, health, and grief resolution as individuals adjusted to their losses.