McLeod J D, Kessler R C
Department of Sociology, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis 55455.
J Health Soc Behav. 1990 Jun;31(2):162-72.
Previous research has documented consistently that persons holding low-socioeconomic status (SES) positions are more strongly affected emotionally by undesirable life events than are their higher-status counterparts. Two types of resources have been implicated in this differential vulnerability: financial resources and a broader class of coping resources, including social support and resilient personality characteristics. We present an analysis that disaggregates measure of life events and of SES to identify which events and which components of SES are most important for understanding differential vulnerability. We document that the lower-SES vulnerability persists across all types of personal events. In addition, we find that differential vulnerability is not confined to income but extends to education and occupational status as well. On the basis of these patterns, we conclude that differential vulnerability reflects more than a simple economic reality. Previous research offers speculative evidence that status differences in past and current social environments may explain differential vulnerability, especially through their effects on the socialization of resilient personality characteristics. We propose future research that could help to evaluate the validity of these speculations.
以往的研究一致表明，社会经济地位（SES）较低的人在情感上比社会经济地位较高的人更容易受到不良生活事件的影响。两种类型的资源与这种差异易感性有关：财务资源以及更广泛的应对资源类别，包括社会支持和坚韧的人格特征。我们进行了一项分析，将生活事件和社会经济地位的衡量指标进行分解，以确定哪些事件和社会经济地位的哪些组成部分对于理解差异易感性最为重要。我们证明，较低社会经济地位的易感性在所有类型的个人事件中都存在。此外，我们发现差异易感性不仅限于收入，还扩展到教育和职业地位。基于这些模式，我们得出结论，差异易感性所反映的不仅仅是简单的经济现实。以往的研究提供了推测性证据，表明过去和当前社会环境中的地位差异可能解释差异易感性，特别是通过它们对坚韧人格特征社会化的影响。我们提出了未来的研究方向，有助于评估这些推测的有效性。
