Wickrama K A S, Surjadi Florensia F, Lorenz Frederick O, Conger Rand D, Walker Catie
Department of Child & Family development, The University of Georgia, 403, Family Science Center, Stafford drive, Athens, GA 30602.
Fam Relat. 2012 Apr 1;61(2):297-312. doi: 10.1111/j.1741-3729.2011.00697.x. Epub 2012 Mar 13.
Using prospective data from 370 middle-aged husbands and wives during a 12-year period, we investigated the intra-individual and dyadic influence of family economic hardship on the levels of depressive symptoms of husbands and wives over their middle years. The results suggest that family economic hardship during the early middle years contributes to subsequent increase in depressive symptoms of husbands and wives after controlling for family economic hardship in late middle years. Consistent with stress-process theory, economic hardship influences depressive symptoms directly and indirectly through its influence on self-esteem. The results also provided evidence for the scar hypothesis which suggests that depression predicts subsequent level of self-esteem and form a reciprocal process between depressive symptoms and self-esteem over time. In sum, for both husbands and wives, our findings showed that depressive symptoms progress over the middle years through a self-perpetuating reciprocal process between self-esteem and depression initiated by early family economic hardship and through cross-spouse influences involving self-esteem and depressive symptoms.
我们利用370对中年夫妻在12年期间的前瞻性数据，研究了家庭经济困难对夫妻中年时期抑郁症状水平的个体内和二元影响。结果表明，中年早期的家庭经济困难在控制了中年晚期的家庭经济困难后，会导致夫妻双方随后抑郁症状的增加。与压力过程理论一致，经济困难通过对自尊的影响直接和间接地影响抑郁症状。研究结果还为疤痕假说提供了证据，该假说认为抑郁会预测随后的自尊水平，并随着时间的推移在抑郁症状和自尊之间形成一个相互作用的过程。总之，对于丈夫和妻子来说，我们的研究结果表明，抑郁症状在中年时期通过早期家庭经济困难引发的自尊和抑郁之间自我延续的相互作用过程以及涉及自尊和抑郁症状的跨配偶影响而发展。
