Families Accommodating to Chronic Stress

Abstract

The results of prolonged exposure to stressors can be observed in an individual's emotions, cognitions, behaviors, and social life. Somehow, difficult life circumstances permeate and influence all aspects of psychological functioning. Finding a way to capture that phenomenon—the process by which persistent demands or strains gradually infiltrate and change an individual's life—is a special challenge facing researchers. We approach that challenge by noting that when even small amounts of variance are explained in particular situations, the underlying processes can account for important long-term outcomes if the situations recur and the effects cumulate (Abelson, 1985). Chronic stress, by definition, recurs, and the effects certainly cumulate. One way to study this process of cumulation, then, is by examining acute responses to short-term increases in common daily stressors.