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Sociology of Mental Health pp 53–74Cite as

The Stress Process: Its Origins, Evolution, and Future

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Abstract

Over the past several decades, the Stress Process Model has provided the predominant theoretical foundation for sociological research into the effects of stress on mental health and empirical research continues to substantiate its account of how society shapes the mental health of its members. Its core elements are: the influence of the social system on exposure to stressors; parallel effects on access to social and personal resources; and, the role of these resources as mediators and moderators. Pivotal developments include: (1) the articulation of the nature of sociological inquiry into stress, (2) the conceptualization and measurement of the stress universe, (3) the debate about psychological distress as a continuum versus discrete disorders as appropriate outcomes for sociological research, and (4) the proposition that multiple outcomes are required to ascertain the mental health consequences of stressors. We conclude that future research should explicate how the components of the Stress Process Model are related to one another in order to realize more fully its explanatory potential as a system.

The authors wish to thank Leonard I. Pearlin and an anonymous reviewer for suggestions that enhanced the chapter.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    There are, of course, other productive sociological approaches to understanding the unequal distribution of mental disorder throughout society. As a case in point, McLeod (2013) attributes mental health disparities partly to social evaluative processes.

  2. 2.

    Statistically, this unique variation is captured in the error term of regression models, an ironic operationalization of individuality, especially when applied to the very personal experience of mental illness.

  3. 3.

    However, as Avison and Turner (1988) demonstrated, some events follow the same lengthy time course as chronic stressors so that duration should be measured.

  4. 4.

    The diminishment of self-concept was conceived of as a mechanism through which life events and chronic strains become stressful, but it has since been considered in the domain of resources, a consequential shift in thinking, as discussed below.

  5. 5.

    Although the resources of social support and coping were conceptualized as mediators, moderating effects also were hypothesized and tested.

  6. 6.

    Similar indirect effects were found for loss of social integration, which is conceptualized as a secondary stressor, but also could be conceptualized as resources that are depleted by displacement.

  7. 7.

    As noted earlier, the original conceptualization of the Stress Process Model treated self-esteem and mastery as the means through which stressors damage mental health, a conceptualization that evolved over time to the role of resources, perhaps because these concepts, along with social support, do generally counteract the effects of stressors when considered as moderators.

  8. 8.

    In statistical terms, this is an instance of inconsistent mediation, which means that the indirect effect of the independent variable is opposite in sign to its total effect (MacKinnon 2008). In this case, the indirect pathway from stressors to resources to disorder has a negative sign (+ × − = −) such that an increase in the stressor indirectly produces a decrease in disorder, whereas the total effect of stressors on mental health has a positive sign.

    Theoretical and analytic neglect of the sign of the relationship between stressors and resources may be the result of the tendency of stress researchers to assess mediation using the difference of coefficients method (instead of the product of coefficients method; MacKinnon 2008), in that it is not necessary to examine the effect of the stressor on the resource. Also, stress researchers often do not test the statistical significance of the mediated effect, an oversight that may lead to the erroneous conclusion that mediation has occurred when it probably has not. Mediation also can be assessed with structural equations models (SEMs), in which case the sign is obvious and tests of statistical significance are parts of the routine output.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Community Health Sciences, Fielding School of Public Health, University of California, Los Angeles, CA, 90095-1772, USA

    Carol S. Aneshensel & Uchechi A. Mitchell

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Correspondence to Carol S. Aneshensel .

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  1. Department of Sociology, University of Miami, Coral Gables, Florida, USA

    Robert J. Johnson

  2. Department of Sociology, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tennessee, USA

    R. Jay Turner

  3. Columbia University, New York, New York, USA

    Bruce G. Link

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Aneshensel, C.S., Mitchell, U.A. (2014). The Stress Process: Its Origins, Evolution, and Future. In: Johnson, R., Turner, R., Link, B. (eds) Sociology of Mental Health. SpringerBriefs in Sociology. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-07797-0_3

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