This proposal on stress, social support, and distress in early and middle adolescence requests support for a three-year longitudinal, prospective study on the impact of economic upheaval on the youth of the farm belt.
The specific aims of the study are: 1) to investigate how family economic hardship and transitions from elementary to secondary school impact patterns of coping and adjustment during the early and middle adolescence period, 2) to determine the role that different social support systems play in the coping and adjustment process, 3) to document possible changes in the nature and amount of stress as a function of the severity of the economic hardship and the particular type of school transition experienced, and 4) to translate the accumulated evidence into future prevention and intervention measures. Distress refers to a variety of stress-related outcomes, such as depression, loneliness, delinquency, drug use, behavior problems, academic performance decline, identity conflicts, and a lowering of self-esteem. The longitudinal, prospective study will follow 360 two-parent families, each with an adolescent child. Of these target adolescents, half will be entering sixth grade at the onset of the project and half will be entering eighth grade. In each of the three years of measurement (1988-1989, 1989-1990, 1990- 1991) data will be collected on multiple indicators of family economic stress, available social support systems, and distress in adolescents, using several different sources and methods of assessment. The longitudinal, prospective nature of the study allows for the construction and testing of models that represent causal links across periods of different school transitions between family economic stress, social support, and distress in adolescents. These models conceptualize different roles for different social support systems in moderating the stress-distress relationship. The testing of these models constitutes an attempt to trace prospectively the direct and indirect impact of economic hardship on the youth of the farm belt.
| Lempers, J D; Clark-Lempers, D S (1997) Economic hardship, family relationships, and adolescent distress: an evaluation of a stress-distress mediation model in mother-daughter and mother-son dyads. Adolescence 32:339-56 |
| Ho, C S; Lempers, J D; Clark-Lempers, D S (1995) Effects of economic hardship on adolescent self-esteem: a family mediation model. Adolescence 30:117-31 |
