Life stressors, personal and social resources, and depression: a 4-year structural model.

By extending earlier stress-resistance research with a 1-year time lag, findings with 254 adults show that adaptive personality characteristics and positive family support operate prospectively over 4 years in predicting reduced depression, even when prior depression is controlled. By strengthening knowledge about the determinants and mediational role of coping, the results demonstrate in a 2-group LISREL analysis that the pattern of predictive relations differs under high and low stressors. Under high stressors, personal and social resources relate to future psychological health indirectly, through more adaptive coping strategies. Under low stressors, these resources relate directly to psychological health. The results support the idea that such resources play a causal role in maintaining psychological health, and they suggest the potential for a general, adaptively oriented framework applicable to adjustment under both high and low stressors.