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HEALTH PSYCHOLOGY, 1990, 9(1), 57-68 Copyright © 1990, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.
Negative Affectivity and the Reporting of Stressful Life Events Joan F. Brett New York University
Arthur P. Brief A. B. Freeman School of Business Tulane University
Michael J. Burke Stern School of Business New York University
Jennifer M. George College of Business Administration Texas A&M University
Jane Webster College of Business Pennsylvania State University
Maddi, Bartone, and Puccetti (1987) and Schroeder and Costa (1984) reported inconsistent findings regarding the impact of negative affectivity (NA; i.e., neuroticism) contaminated life event items on observed life event-illness relationships. Here, unlike the previous studies, such contaminated items were nonjudgmentally identified. Among a sample of managers and professionals, it was found that NA-contaminated items correlated significantly with three measures of well-being (depression, life satisfaction, and physical symptoms) and that uncontaminated items were unassociated with the well-being indicators. Moreover, in two of three cases, the correlations between contaminated items and the well-being measures were significantly different from the correlations between uncontaminated items and the well-being indicators. Therefore, we concluded that prior life event-well-being findings are inflated The order of the three junior authors was determined alphabetically. Requests for reprints should be sent to Arthur P. Brief, A. B. Freeman School of Business, Tulane University, New Orleans, LA 70118-5669.
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BRETT, BRIEF, BURKE, GEORGE, WEBSTER considerably by the use of NA-contaminated events. Suggestions for future life events research that incorporate the NA construct are detailed.
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Key words: life events, stress, neuroticism, well-being
Schroeder and Costa (1984) argued that observed relationships between self-reports of stressful life events and self-reports of illness are contaminated by several factors including neuroticism. They purported to demonstrate the plausibility of this argument by showing that neuroticism-related events are significantly correlated with illness but uncontaminated events are not. Maddi, Bartone, and Puccetti (1987) argued otherwise and showed that both neuroticism-related and uncontaminated events are significantly correlated with illness. Here, we seek to shed light on these conflicting results by employing a method of classifying events different from those used by both groups of researchers and by using criterion variables not investigated by either group. Maddi et al. and Schroeder and Costa used expert judges to determine if an event should be classified as neuroticism related. Alternatively, we classify events based on their observed relationships to a measure of negative affectivity (NA). According to Watson and Clark (1984), NA is a mooddispositional dimension reflecting pervasive individual differences in negative emotionality and self-concept. Based on an exhaustive review of the literature regarding NA, Watson and Clark concluded, among other things, that (a) high-NA individuals tend to focus differentially on the negative aspects of themselves, other people, and the world in general (i.e., they accentuate the negative) and (b) NA parsimoniously reflects what is tapped by several indicators previously thought to gauge distinct constructs including, in particular, various measures of neuroticism (e.g., H. J. Eysenck, 1962; H. J. Eysenck & S. B. G. Eysenck, 1968; Winne, 1951). Due to our reliance on a statistical index of contamination, our method of classification may be seen to be nonjudgmental and, therefore, more objective than that of the previous researchers. In regard to the purported effects of stressful life events, psychological well-being as well as physical illness are often-investigated correlates of life events. Maddi et al. and Schroeder and Costa used Wyler, Masuda, and Holmes's (1968) Seriousness of Illness Rating Scale to measure illness. Given the self-report nature of the scale, it could be argued that it, at least to some degree, captures psychological well-being in addition to physical illness; but, the scale clearly was not designed to do so. Here, by focusing on psychological well-being, we seek to ascertain if the contamination argument should be extended to the full domain of the purported consequences of stressful life events.
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This article reports the results of a study in which the relationships between stressful life events (NA-contaminated, uncontaminated) and well-being (indexed by depression, life satisfaction, and physical symptoms) are examined. In the study, events are classified as contaminated based on their observed relationships to a measure of NA. The purpose of the study can be viewed as an attempt to constructively replicate (Lykken, 1968) the findings of Maddi et al. or Schroeder and Costa and, thereby, help resolve the conflict between these two groups of researchers' findings. METHOD Sample
The subjects for this study were professional and managerial personnel of an insurance company who had participated in a larger series of studies (Brief, Burke, George, Robinson, & Webster, 1988). The measures used in this study were part of a questionnaire that was mailed to respondents through interoffice mail and returned directly to the researchers. Confidentiality of responses was guaranteed; only aggregate results (from the larger study) were presented to the insurance company. The overall response rate for the larger study (N = 497) was 45%, with 330 employees completing questionnaires containing the measures of interest for this study. Of the sample, 133 (40.3%) were women. Mean respondent's age was 40.9 years (SD = 8.83 years). Education ranged from some high school to a graduate degree, with 223 (67.5%) of the respondents having been graduated from college. Company tenure averaged 9.07 years (SD = 3.22 years); average annual salary was $48,214 (SD = $28,403). Measures and Procedures
NA. NA was measured using the Taylor Manifest Anxiety Scale (Taylor, 1953). This scale is made up of 50 items taken, with slight modification, from the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory. It includes items such as "I worry over money and business" and "I have very few headaches." Items are scored by adding up the number of "true" and "false" responses to particular questions. Thus, it is an item count of the NA statements that apply to a respondent. Test-retest reliabilities have been greater than .80 over periods ranging from 3 weeks to 17 months; no significant differences between males and females have been shown (Taylor, 1953). The average internal consistency estimate for this scale is .82, and it is reported to correlate highly (r > .70) with 12 other personality measures (Watson & Clark, 1984). In fact, D. Watson (personal communication, 1985) concluded that, of 12 personality measures investigated, the Taylor scale is the best indicator of NA.
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Stressful life events. The life event checklist used items from the Psychiatric Epidemiology Research Interview (B. S. Dohrenwend, Krasnoff, Askenasy, & B. P. Dohrenwend, 1978). Based on B. S. Dohrenwend et al.'s advice to add or delete events contingent on the particular population under study and on six unstructured interviews with prospective respondents, additional life events were added. A total of 119 events were investigated, with 21 classified as job events and 98 as personal events. Respondents were asked, consistent with Bhagat, McQuaid, Lindholm, and Segovis (1985), to indicate whether a given life event has happened to them in the last 3 years. Classification of stressful events as NA contaminated. Those life events that were included in either the Maddi et al. (1987) or the Schroeder and Costa (1984) checklists were used. Reference to the appendices of their reports indicated that, of the 119 items currently measured, 30 were common to both previous studies, 42 items were common only to Maddi et al., and 5 items were common only to Schroeder and Costa. Thus, overall, only these 77 items were used in subsequent analyses to classify events based on their observed relationships to measures of NA. Subjects were randomly assigned to receive one of two questionnaires containing the variables pertinent to the current study. The questionnaires mailed to Subsample 1 included the measures of life events and NA, whereas the questionnaire mailed to Subsample 2 included both these measures plus all three dependent measures. Thus, responses from 154 subjects in Subsample 1 were used to determine the relationship between these 77 life events and NA. Life events that exhibited a statistically significant correlation with NA were identified as NA contaminated. (These 18 items are listed in the Appendix.) Each NA-contaminated item was endorsed by an average of 20% of the respondents, with a range across items from 3.2% to 43.5%. Those 59 items not classified as NA contaminated were labeled uncontaminated. Four of the uncontaminated items were not endorsed by any of the participants, so these items were not included in the analysis. Each uncontaminated item was endorsed by an average of 14.5% of the respondents, with a range across items from .6% to 73.4%. Subsample 2, with 176 subjects, was used to investigate the relationship of NA-contaminated and uncontaminated items with wellbeing. Symptoms of depression. Depressive symptoms were measured with the Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale (Radloff, 1977). This scale consists of 20 items such as "I did not feel like eating; my appetite was poor." Respondents indicate how often they have felt this way during the past week using a 4-point scale ranging from rarely or none of the time
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(less than 1 day) (1) to most or all of the time (5-7 days) (4). Radloff reported test-retest reliability coefficients ranging from .32 (for 12 months) to .67 (for 4 weeks) and internal consistency reliability estimates of .85. Life satisfaction. The Satisfaction With Life Scale, which assesses global life satisfaction (Diener, Emmons, Larsen, & Griffin, 1985) using five items and a 7-point scale ranging from strongly disagree (1) to strongly agree (7), was used to measure life satisfaction. The items (e.g., "The conditions of my life are excellent") are summed to arrive at a total life satisfaction score. Diener et al. reported a 2-month test-retest reliability estimate of .82 and an internal consistency reliability estimate of .87. Physical symptoms. The Pennebaker Inventory of Limbic Languidness (Pennebaker, 1982) includes 54 physical symptoms and complaints. The scale consists of items such as ringing in ears and itching or painful eyes. Respondents indicate how frequently they experienced a symptom by using a 5-point scale ranging from have never or almost never experienced the symptom (1) to more than once every week (5). The frequencies of responses are summed across items for a total score. Pennebaker reported that the validity of this measure is indicated by data showing that high scorers make more physician and health center visits and have more health-related work absences than low scorers. RESULTS
Estimates of internal consistency reliabilities (Cronbach, 1951) for NA and each of the criterion measures were as follows: .77 for NA, .90 for depression, .90 for life satisfaction, and .90 for physical symptoms. The mean number of NA-contaminated events reported by respondents was 3.73 (SD = 2.47); the corresponding mean for uncontaminated events was 7.83 (SD = 3.76). The correlations of NA-contaminated, uncontaminated, and total life events with indicators of well-being are shown in Table 1. NA-contaminated events were correlated significantly with each measure of well-being,1 whereas uncontaminated events were not. This is in spite of the fact that those correlations involving the uncontaminated events may be considered 'As can be seen in the Appendix, two of the NA-contaminated items correlate negatively with NA. To ascertain if the inclusion of these two "positive events" somehow masked "true" NA-contaminated-well-being relationships, supplementary analyses were conducted in which the two items were excluded. When they were excluded, the correlation of NA-contaminated items with depression, life satisfaction, and physical symptoms increased marginally {r = .36, p < .001; r - .34, p < .001; and r = .18, p < .05; respectively).
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TABLE 1 Correlation Coefficients Between NA-Contaminated and Uncontaminated Life Events and Outcome Measures
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Life Events NA contaminated Uncontaminated Total life events
Depression
Life Satisfaction
Physical Symptoms
.31*** .13 .26***
-.30*** -.12 -.23**
.16* .07 .13
*p < .05. **p < .01. ***/> < .001.
inflated (i.e., overestimates of uncontaminated correlations) because they include subjective and physical-related life events excluded by Maddi et al. (1987) and Schroeder and Costa (1984). To ascertain if NA-contaminated events, compared to uncontaminated events, correlated differently with each of the dependent measures, t tests between each corresponding pair of correlations were conducted (J. Cohen & P. Cohen, 1983). It was found that the correlations between NAcontaminated events and (a) depression and (b) life satisfaction were significantly different from the corresponding correlations for the uncontaminated events (t = 2.62, p < .01, and t = 2.72, p < .01, respectively). Only these two outcome measures (i.e., depression and life satisfaction) were found to be significantly correlated with total life events, a combined measure of NA-contaminated and uncontaminated items. An additional analysis conducted with all 119 of the life event items, including those not common to the Maddi et al. or the Schroeder and Costa checklist, resulted in highly similar findings. NA-contaminated events were correlated significantly with the dependent measures; uncontaminated events were not. The correlation between NA-contaminated events and two measures of well-being were significantly different from the corresponding correlations for the uncontaminated events (t = 2.70, p < .01, for depression; t = 3.29, p < .01, for life satisfaction). Total life events also were found to be correlated significantly with depression and life satisfaction. Therefore, it seems that the 77 life events included in the primary analysis are not unrepresentative of the larger set of 119 items.
DISCUSSION
Employing a less subjective way of identifying stressful life events as NA contaminated, we, like Maddi et al. (1987) and Schroeder and Costa (1984), found NA-contaminated events to be correlated significantly with indicators of well-being. Inconsistent with the findings of Maddi et al., however, uncontaminated events were not significantly correlated with any of the
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three indicators of well-being. Further, the correlations between NAcontaminated events and depression and life satisfaction were significantly different from those corresponding relationships found for uncontaminated events. On balance, therefore, it appears that prior life event-well-being findings are inflated considerably (Brief et al., 1988). Several reasons may be posited for the association between NA and the reporting of stressful life events. First, given the statistical method used in the current study to identify NA-contaminated events, one would expect a priori that 5% of the events labeled as NA contaminated (i.e., 4 of 77 events) would be so labeled by chance alone. Thus, the way in which NA-contaminated events were identified here is not problem free; however, it is arguably at least more objective than previously used procedures. Second, although the occurrence of some events is easily ascertained (e.g., births and deaths), the occurrence of others is more judgmental in nature (e.g., troubles with spouse or boss). Because high-NA individuals accentuate the negative, for example, by significantly overestimating the size of failure-related stimuli (Zahn, 1960) and by interpreting ambiguous stimuli more negatively (Goodstein, 1954; Haney, 1973; Phares, 1961), it seems reasonable to argue that high-NA individuals would tend to report the occurrence of subjective events of the negative kind more often than low-NA individuals. Support for this argument is found in a study by L. Cohen, Towbes, and Flocco (1988). They reported a significant mood effect on the number of self-reported negative life events, with depressed mood subjects indicating significantly more negative life events than elated subjects. Third, given that NA is the disposition to experience aversive emotional states and that such states are associated with the recall of unpleasant experiences (e.g., Bower, 1981; Bower & Cohn, 1982; Clark & Isen, 1982), the relationship between NA and the reporting of stressful life events may be attributable to how high-NA individuals differentially encode events in and/or retrieve them from memory. As a final example, the works of Depue and Monroe (1986) and B. S. Dohrenwend, B. P. Dohrenwend, Dodson, and Shrout (1984) suggest that some life events, in fact, may be a consequence of NA; that is, for instance, the negative world view of high-NA individuals may cause others to react to them in ways that create and/or constitute adverse circumstances for these chronically complaining persons. At this point, how NA is tied to the reporting of stressful life events is unknown. Each of the latter three linking mechanisms we have suggested, however, appears to represent a viable avenue for future investigation. Although this study did not support the findings of Maddi et al. (1987), others have. For example, Rowlinson and Felner (1988) obtained results seemingly consistent with those of Maddi et al.; but their study differed markedly from that of Maddi et al. as well as from the current study. For
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instance, Rowlinson and Felner employed a sample of junior and senior high school students; more important, they focused on the contamination of daily hassle items (Kanner, Coyne, Schaefer, & Lazarus, 1981) rather than on the contamination of stressful life events and gauged such contamination in terms of symptoms of psychological disorder rather than neuroticism or NA per se. Such differences are not the only ones that could explain the observed inconsistencies in findings across studies. For example, the 3-year time span for reporting stressful life events used in the current study is longer than normally reported. The potential salience of such a difference is attributable to the argument that stressful events may have their impact within a matter of months and that a longer time interval dilutes the effects of recent events. Therefore, it can be seen that, given the limited number of studies that have been conducted to date, the variety of methods employed, and the differences in results obtained, the effects of NA contamination remain an open issue. In sum, the results of the current study, which largely are supportive of Schroeder and Costa's (1984) findings, indicate that the relationship between reported life events and well-being may be far weaker than previously thought. This conclusion is buttressed by the evidence that suggests that NA not only contaminates the reporting of life events but is associated with various self-reports of well-being (e.g., somatic complaints; see Costa & McCrae, 1980, 1987; McCrae, Bartone, & Costa, 1976). Thus, it seems that extreme caution should be exercised in interpreting observed life events-wellbeing relationships, particularly if the effects of NA on both the predictor and criterion variables have not been assessed. However, if such effects have been assessed and are not negligible, then the option of statistically controlling for NA should be exercised. Until further progress has been made on the NA problem, other remedies appear to be out of our grasp. For instance, such progress might entail the accumulation of normative data indicating which life events are related to NA. However, considering that the current empirically identified NA-contaminated life events appear to overlap only minimally with those subjectively identified in previous studies, one should not anticipate the required data to be readily obtainable. ACKNOWLEDGMENT We appreciate the ideas suggested by anonymous reviewers. REFERENCES Bhagat, R. S., McQuaid, S. J., Lindholm, H., & Segovis, J. (1985). Total life stress: A multimethod validation of the construct and its effect on organizationally valued outcomes and withdrawal behaviors. Journal of Applied Psychology, 70, 202-214.
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Bower, G. H. (1981). Mood and memory. American Psychologist, 36, 129-148. Bower, G. H., & Cohn, P. R. (1982). Emotional influences in memory and thinking: Data and theory. In M. S. Clark & S. T. Fiske (Eds.), Affect and cognition: The seventeenth annual Carnegie Symposium on Cognition (pp. 291-331). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc. Brief, A. P., Burke, M. J., George, J. M., Robinson, B. S., & Webster, J. (1988). Should negative affectivity remain an unmeasured variable in the study of job stress? Journal of Applied Psychology, 73, 193-198. Clark, M. S., & Isen, A. M. (1982). Toward understanding the relationship between feeling states and social behavior. In A. H. Hastorf & A. M. Isen (Eds.), Cognitive social psychology (pp. 73-108). New York: Elsevier. Cohen, J., & Cohen, P. (1983). Applied multiple regression/correlation analysis for the behavioral sciences. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc. Cohen, L., Towbes, L., & Flocco, R. (1988). Effects of induced mood on self-reported life events and perceived and received social support. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 55, 669-674. Costa, P. T., & McCrae, R. R. (1980). Somatic complaints in males as a function of age and neuroticism: A longitudinal analysis. Journal of Behavioral Medicine, 3, 245-257. Costa, P. T., & McCrae, R. R. (1987). Neuroticism, somatic complaints, and disease: Is the bark worse than the bite? Journal of Personality, 55, 229-316. Cronbach, L. J. (1951). Coefficient alpha and the internal structure of tests. Psychometrika, 16, 297-334. Depue, R. A., & Monroe, S. M. (1986). Conceptualization and measurement of human disorder in life stress research: The problem of chronic disturbance. Psychological Bulletin, 99, 36-51. Diener, E., Emmons, R. A., Larsen, R. J., & Griffin, S. (1985). The Satisfaction With Life Scale. Personality Assessment, 49, 71-75. Dohrenwend, B. S., Dohrenwend, B. P., Dodson, M., & Shrout, P. E. (1984). Symptoms, hassles, social supports, and life events: Problems of confounded measures. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 93, 222-230. Dohrenwend, B. S., Krasnoff, L., Askenasy, A. R., & Dohrenwend, B. P. (1978). Exemplification of a method for scaling life events: The PERI Life Events Scale. Journal of Health and Social Behavior, 19, 205-229. Eysenck, H. J. (1962). The Maudsley Personality Inventory. San Diego: Educational and Industrial Testing Service. Eysenck, H. J., & Eysenck, S. B. G. (1968). Manual for the Eysenck Personality Inventory. San Diego: Educational and Industrial Testing Service. Goodstein, L. D. (1954). Interrelationships among several measures of anxiety and hostility. Journal of Consulting Psychology, 18, 35-39. Haney, J. N. (1973). Approach-avoidance reactions by repressors and sensitizers to ambiguity in a structured free-association task. Psychological Reports, 33, 97-98. Kanner, A. D., Coyne, J. C , Schaefer, C , & Lazarus, R. S. (1981). Comparison of two models of stress measurement: Daily hassles and uplifts versus major life events. Journal of Behavioral Medicine, 4, 1-39. Lykken, D. T. (1968). Statistical significance in psychological research. Psychological Bulletin, 70, 151-159. Maddi, S. R., Bartone, P. T., & Puccetti, M. C. (1987). Stressful events are indeed a factor in physical illness: Reply to Schroeder and Costa (1984). Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 52, 833-843. McCrae, R. R., Bartone, P. T., & Costa, P. T. (1976). Age, anxiety, and self-reported health. Aging and Human Development, 7, 49-58. Pennebaker, J. W. (1982). The psychology ofphysical symptoms. New York: Springer-Verlag.
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Phares, E. J. (1961). TAT performance as a function of anxiety and coping-avoiding behavior. Journal of Consulting Psychology, 25, 257-259. Radloff, L. S. (1977). The CES-D Scale: A self-report depression scale for research in the general population. Applied Psychological Measurement, 1, 385-401. Rowlinson, R., & Felner, R. (1988). Major life events, hassles and adaptation in adolescence: Confounding in the conceptualization and measurement of life stress and adjustment revisited. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 55, 432-444. Schroeder, D. H., & Costa, P. T. (1984). Influence of life event stress on physical illness: Substantive effects or methodological flaws? Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 46, 853-863. Taylor, J. A. (1953). A personality scale of manifest anxiety. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 48, 285-290. Watson, D., & Clark, L. A. (1984). Negative affectivity: The disposition to experience aversive emotional states. Psychological Bulletin, 96, 465-490. Winne, J. F. (1951). A scale of neuroticism: An adaptation of the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory. Journal of Clinical Psychology, 7, 117-122. Wyler, A. R., Masuda, M., & Holmes, T. H. (1968). The Seriousness of Illness Rating Scale. Journal of Psychosomatic Research, 11, 363-374. Zahn, T. P. (1960). Size estimation of pictures associated with success and failure as a function of manifest anxiety. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 61, 457-462.
APPENDIX Stressful Life Event Items Event 1. Started school or a training program after not going to school for a long time. 2. Changed jobs for a better one. 3. Changed jobs for a worse one. 4. Had trouble with boss. 5. Demoted at work. 6. Found out that was not going to be promoted at work. 7. Conditions at work got worse, other than demotion or trouble with boss. 8. Promoted on my present job. 9. Had significant success at work. 10. Conditions at work improved, not counting promotion or other personal successes. 11. Laid off from previous job. 12. Fired from previous job. 13. Started a business or profession. 14. Sharply reduced work load. 15. Did not work for an extended period of time before this job. 16. Had trouble with a co-worker or peer. 17. Had trouble with a subordinate. 18. Had trouble with a customer or client. 19. Sharply increased work load.
Correlation With NA*
.32***
.32*** - .16* -.17*
.23** .24** .23**
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Event 20. Spouse returned to work after not having worked for a long time. 21. Spouse changed jobs for one that was not better or worse than the last one. 22. Spouse stopped working, not retirement, for an extended period. 23. Took out a mortgage. 24. Started buying a car, furniture, or other large purchase on an installment plan. 25. Foreclosure of a mortgage or loan. 26. Repossession of a car, furniture, or other items bought on an installment plan. 27. Took a cut in wage or salary without a demotion. 28. Suffered a financial loss of property not related to work. 29. Got a substantial increase in wage or salary without a promotion. 30. Did not get an expected wage or salary increase. 31. Had financial improvement not related to work. 32. Assaulted. 33. Robbed. 34. Got involved in a court case. 35. Increased church or synagogue, club, neighborhood, or other organizational activities. 36. Was not able to take a planned vacation. 37. Took up a new hobby, sport, craft or recreational activity. 38. Dropped a hobby, sport, craft or recreational activity. 39. Made new friends. 40. Broke off a friendship. 41. Close friend died. 42. Unable to move after expecting to be able to move. 43. Built a home or had one built. 44. Remodeled a home. 45. Lost a home through fire, flood, or other disaster. 46. Moved to a better residence or neighborhood. 47. Moved to a worse residence or neighborhood. 48. Moved to a residence or neighborhood no better or no worse than the last one. 49. Expecting a baby. 50. Birth of first child. 51. Birth of a second or later child. 52. Abortion. 53. Miscarriage or stillbirth. 54. Found out that cannot have children. 55. Child died. 56. Adopted a child. 57. Started menopause. 58. New person moved into the household. 59. Person moved out of the household. 60. Someone stayed on in the household after he or she was expected to leave.
Correlation With NAa
.20*
.21**
.18* .25** .24**
.21**
.16*
67
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Event 61. 62. 63. 64. 65. 66. 67. 68. 69. 70.
Serious family argument other than with spouse. A change in the frequency of family get-togethers. Family member other than spouse or child died. Family member other than spouse or child physically ill. Physical illness. Injury. Became engaged. Married. Started a love affair. Relations with spouse changed for the worse, without separation or divorce. 71. Married couple separated. 72. Divorce. 73. Relations with spouse changed for the better. 74. I got back with my spouse after a separation. 75. Marital infidelity. 76. Trouble with in-laws. 77. Spouse died. "Statistically significant correlations with NA are reported. *p < .05. **/> < .01. ***p < .001.
68
Correlation With NAa .18* .19*
.28***
.17*
HEALTH PSYCHOLOGY, 1990, 9(1), 57-68 Copyright © 1990, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.
Negative Affectivity and the Reporting of Stressful Life Events Joan F. Brett New York University
Arthur P. Brief A. B. Freeman School of Business Tulane University
Michael J. Burke Stern School of Business New York University
Jennifer M. George College of Business Administration Texas A&M University
Jane Webster College of Business Pennsylvania State University
Maddi, Bartone, and Puccetti (1987) and Schroeder and Costa (1984) reported inconsistent findings regarding the impact of negative affectivity (NA; i.e., neuroticism) contaminated life event items on observed life event-illness relationships. Here, unlike the previous studies, such contaminated items were nonjudgmentally identified. Among a sample of managers and professionals, it was found that NA-contaminated items correlated significantly with three measures of well-being (depression, life satisfaction, and physical symptoms) and that uncontaminated items were unassociated with the well-being indicators. Moreover, in two of three cases, the correlations between contaminated items and the well-being measures were significantly different from the correlations between uncontaminated items and the well-being indicators. Therefore, we concluded that prior life event-well-being findings are inflated The order of the three junior authors was determined alphabetically. Requests for reprints should be sent to Arthur P. Brief, A. B. Freeman School of Business, Tulane University, New Orleans, LA 70118-5669.
58
BRETT, BRIEF, BURKE, GEORGE, WEBSTER considerably by the use of NA-contaminated events. Suggestions for future life events research that incorporate the NA construct are detailed.
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Key words: life events, stress, neuroticism, well-being
Schroeder and Costa (1984) argued that observed relationships between self-reports of stressful life events and self-reports of illness are contaminated by several factors including neuroticism. They purported to demonstrate the plausibility of this argument by showing that neuroticism-related events are significantly correlated with illness but uncontaminated events are not. Maddi, Bartone, and Puccetti (1987) argued otherwise and showed that both neuroticism-related and uncontaminated events are significantly correlated with illness. Here, we seek to shed light on these conflicting results by employing a method of classifying events different from those used by both groups of researchers and by using criterion variables not investigated by either group. Maddi et al. and Schroeder and Costa used expert judges to determine if an event should be classified as neuroticism related. Alternatively, we classify events based on their observed relationships to a measure of negative affectivity (NA). According to Watson and Clark (1984), NA is a mooddispositional dimension reflecting pervasive individual differences in negative emotionality and self-concept. Based on an exhaustive review of the literature regarding NA, Watson and Clark concluded, among other things, that (a) high-NA individuals tend to focus differentially on the negative aspects of themselves, other people, and the world in general (i.e., they accentuate the negative) and (b) NA parsimoniously reflects what is tapped by several indicators previously thought to gauge distinct constructs including, in particular, various measures of neuroticism (e.g., H. J. Eysenck, 1962; H. J. Eysenck & S. B. G. Eysenck, 1968; Winne, 1951). Due to our reliance on a statistical index of contamination, our method of classification may be seen to be nonjudgmental and, therefore, more objective than that of the previous researchers. In regard to the purported effects of stressful life events, psychological well-being as well as physical illness are often-investigated correlates of life events. Maddi et al. and Schroeder and Costa used Wyler, Masuda, and Holmes's (1968) Seriousness of Illness Rating Scale to measure illness. Given the self-report nature of the scale, it could be argued that it, at least to some degree, captures psychological well-being in addition to physical illness; but, the scale clearly was not designed to do so. Here, by focusing on psychological well-being, we seek to ascertain if the contamination argument should be extended to the full domain of the purported consequences of stressful life events.
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This article reports the results of a study in which the relationships between stressful life events (NA-contaminated, uncontaminated) and well-being (indexed by depression, life satisfaction, and physical symptoms) are examined. In the study, events are classified as contaminated based on their observed relationships to a measure of NA. The purpose of the study can be viewed as an attempt to constructively replicate (Lykken, 1968) the findings of Maddi et al. or Schroeder and Costa and, thereby, help resolve the conflict between these two groups of researchers' findings. METHOD Sample
The subjects for this study were professional and managerial personnel of an insurance company who had participated in a larger series of studies (Brief, Burke, George, Robinson, & Webster, 1988). The measures used in this study were part of a questionnaire that was mailed to respondents through interoffice mail and returned directly to the researchers. Confidentiality of responses was guaranteed; only aggregate results (from the larger study) were presented to the insurance company. The overall response rate for the larger study (N = 497) was 45%, with 330 employees completing questionnaires containing the measures of interest for this study. Of the sample, 133 (40.3%) were women. Mean respondent's age was 40.9 years (SD = 8.83 years). Education ranged from some high school to a graduate degree, with 223 (67.5%) of the respondents having been graduated from college. Company tenure averaged 9.07 years (SD = 3.22 years); average annual salary was $48,214 (SD = $28,403). Measures and Procedures
NA. NA was measured using the Taylor Manifest Anxiety Scale (Taylor, 1953). This scale is made up of 50 items taken, with slight modification, from the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory. It includes items such as "I worry over money and business" and "I have very few headaches." Items are scored by adding up the number of "true" and "false" responses to particular questions. Thus, it is an item count of the NA statements that apply to a respondent. Test-retest reliabilities have been greater than .80 over periods ranging from 3 weeks to 17 months; no significant differences between males and females have been shown (Taylor, 1953). The average internal consistency estimate for this scale is .82, and it is reported to correlate highly (r > .70) with 12 other personality measures (Watson & Clark, 1984). In fact, D. Watson (personal communication, 1985) concluded that, of 12 personality measures investigated, the Taylor scale is the best indicator of NA.
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Stressful life events. The life event checklist used items from the Psychiatric Epidemiology Research Interview (B. S. Dohrenwend, Krasnoff, Askenasy, & B. P. Dohrenwend, 1978). Based on B. S. Dohrenwend et al.'s advice to add or delete events contingent on the particular population under study and on six unstructured interviews with prospective respondents, additional life events were added. A total of 119 events were investigated, with 21 classified as job events and 98 as personal events. Respondents were asked, consistent with Bhagat, McQuaid, Lindholm, and Segovis (1985), to indicate whether a given life event has happened to them in the last 3 years. Classification of stressful events as NA contaminated. Those life events that were included in either the Maddi et al. (1987) or the Schroeder and Costa (1984) checklists were used. Reference to the appendices of their reports indicated that, of the 119 items currently measured, 30 were common to both previous studies, 42 items were common only to Maddi et al., and 5 items were common only to Schroeder and Costa. Thus, overall, only these 77 items were used in subsequent analyses to classify events based on their observed relationships to measures of NA. Subjects were randomly assigned to receive one of two questionnaires containing the variables pertinent to the current study. The questionnaires mailed to Subsample 1 included the measures of life events and NA, whereas the questionnaire mailed to Subsample 2 included both these measures plus all three dependent measures. Thus, responses from 154 subjects in Subsample 1 were used to determine the relationship between these 77 life events and NA. Life events that exhibited a statistically significant correlation with NA were identified as NA contaminated. (These 18 items are listed in the Appendix.) Each NA-contaminated item was endorsed by an average of 20% of the respondents, with a range across items from 3.2% to 43.5%. Those 59 items not classified as NA contaminated were labeled uncontaminated. Four of the uncontaminated items were not endorsed by any of the participants, so these items were not included in the analysis. Each uncontaminated item was endorsed by an average of 14.5% of the respondents, with a range across items from .6% to 73.4%. Subsample 2, with 176 subjects, was used to investigate the relationship of NA-contaminated and uncontaminated items with wellbeing. Symptoms of depression. Depressive symptoms were measured with the Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale (Radloff, 1977). This scale consists of 20 items such as "I did not feel like eating; my appetite was poor." Respondents indicate how often they have felt this way during the past week using a 4-point scale ranging from rarely or none of the time
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(less than 1 day) (1) to most or all of the time (5-7 days) (4). Radloff reported test-retest reliability coefficients ranging from .32 (for 12 months) to .67 (for 4 weeks) and internal consistency reliability estimates of .85. Life satisfaction. The Satisfaction With Life Scale, which assesses global life satisfaction (Diener, Emmons, Larsen, & Griffin, 1985) using five items and a 7-point scale ranging from strongly disagree (1) to strongly agree (7), was used to measure life satisfaction. The items (e.g., "The conditions of my life are excellent") are summed to arrive at a total life satisfaction score. Diener et al. reported a 2-month test-retest reliability estimate of .82 and an internal consistency reliability estimate of .87. Physical symptoms. The Pennebaker Inventory of Limbic Languidness (Pennebaker, 1982) includes 54 physical symptoms and complaints. The scale consists of items such as ringing in ears and itching or painful eyes. Respondents indicate how frequently they experienced a symptom by using a 5-point scale ranging from have never or almost never experienced the symptom (1) to more than once every week (5). The frequencies of responses are summed across items for a total score. Pennebaker reported that the validity of this measure is indicated by data showing that high scorers make more physician and health center visits and have more health-related work absences than low scorers. RESULTS
Estimates of internal consistency reliabilities (Cronbach, 1951) for NA and each of the criterion measures were as follows: .77 for NA, .90 for depression, .90 for life satisfaction, and .90 for physical symptoms. The mean number of NA-contaminated events reported by respondents was 3.73 (SD = 2.47); the corresponding mean for uncontaminated events was 7.83 (SD = 3.76). The correlations of NA-contaminated, uncontaminated, and total life events with indicators of well-being are shown in Table 1. NA-contaminated events were correlated significantly with each measure of well-being,1 whereas uncontaminated events were not. This is in spite of the fact that those correlations involving the uncontaminated events may be considered 'As can be seen in the Appendix, two of the NA-contaminated items correlate negatively with NA. To ascertain if the inclusion of these two "positive events" somehow masked "true" NA-contaminated-well-being relationships, supplementary analyses were conducted in which the two items were excluded. When they were excluded, the correlation of NA-contaminated items with depression, life satisfaction, and physical symptoms increased marginally {r = .36, p < .001; r - .34, p < .001; and r = .18, p < .05; respectively).
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TABLE 1 Correlation Coefficients Between NA-Contaminated and Uncontaminated Life Events and Outcome Measures
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Life Events NA contaminated Uncontaminated Total life events
Depression
Life Satisfaction
Physical Symptoms
.31*** .13 .26***
-.30*** -.12 -.23**
.16* .07 .13
*p < .05. **p < .01. ***/> < .001.
inflated (i.e., overestimates of uncontaminated correlations) because they include subjective and physical-related life events excluded by Maddi et al. (1987) and Schroeder and Costa (1984). To ascertain if NA-contaminated events, compared to uncontaminated events, correlated differently with each of the dependent measures, t tests between each corresponding pair of correlations were conducted (J. Cohen & P. Cohen, 1983). It was found that the correlations between NAcontaminated events and (a) depression and (b) life satisfaction were significantly different from the corresponding correlations for the uncontaminated events (t = 2.62, p < .01, and t = 2.72, p < .01, respectively). Only these two outcome measures (i.e., depression and life satisfaction) were found to be significantly correlated with total life events, a combined measure of NA-contaminated and uncontaminated items. An additional analysis conducted with all 119 of the life event items, including those not common to the Maddi et al. or the Schroeder and Costa checklist, resulted in highly similar findings. NA-contaminated events were correlated significantly with the dependent measures; uncontaminated events were not. The correlation between NA-contaminated events and two measures of well-being were significantly different from the corresponding correlations for the uncontaminated events (t = 2.70, p < .01, for depression; t = 3.29, p < .01, for life satisfaction). Total life events also were found to be correlated significantly with depression and life satisfaction. Therefore, it seems that the 77 life events included in the primary analysis are not unrepresentative of the larger set of 119 items.
DISCUSSION
Employing a less subjective way of identifying stressful life events as NA contaminated, we, like Maddi et al. (1987) and Schroeder and Costa (1984), found NA-contaminated events to be correlated significantly with indicators of well-being. Inconsistent with the findings of Maddi et al., however, uncontaminated events were not significantly correlated with any of the
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three indicators of well-being. Further, the correlations between NAcontaminated events and depression and life satisfaction were significantly different from those corresponding relationships found for uncontaminated events. On balance, therefore, it appears that prior life event-well-being findings are inflated considerably (Brief et al., 1988). Several reasons may be posited for the association between NA and the reporting of stressful life events. First, given the statistical method used in the current study to identify NA-contaminated events, one would expect a priori that 5% of the events labeled as NA contaminated (i.e., 4 of 77 events) would be so labeled by chance alone. Thus, the way in which NA-contaminated events were identified here is not problem free; however, it is arguably at least more objective than previously used procedures. Second, although the occurrence of some events is easily ascertained (e.g., births and deaths), the occurrence of others is more judgmental in nature (e.g., troubles with spouse or boss). Because high-NA individuals accentuate the negative, for example, by significantly overestimating the size of failure-related stimuli (Zahn, 1960) and by interpreting ambiguous stimuli more negatively (Goodstein, 1954; Haney, 1973; Phares, 1961), it seems reasonable to argue that high-NA individuals would tend to report the occurrence of subjective events of the negative kind more often than low-NA individuals. Support for this argument is found in a study by L. Cohen, Towbes, and Flocco (1988). They reported a significant mood effect on the number of self-reported negative life events, with depressed mood subjects indicating significantly more negative life events than elated subjects. Third, given that NA is the disposition to experience aversive emotional states and that such states are associated with the recall of unpleasant experiences (e.g., Bower, 1981; Bower & Cohn, 1982; Clark & Isen, 1982), the relationship between NA and the reporting of stressful life events may be attributable to how high-NA individuals differentially encode events in and/or retrieve them from memory. As a final example, the works of Depue and Monroe (1986) and B. S. Dohrenwend, B. P. Dohrenwend, Dodson, and Shrout (1984) suggest that some life events, in fact, may be a consequence of NA; that is, for instance, the negative world view of high-NA individuals may cause others to react to them in ways that create and/or constitute adverse circumstances for these chronically complaining persons. At this point, how NA is tied to the reporting of stressful life events is unknown. Each of the latter three linking mechanisms we have suggested, however, appears to represent a viable avenue for future investigation. Although this study did not support the findings of Maddi et al. (1987), others have. For example, Rowlinson and Felner (1988) obtained results seemingly consistent with those of Maddi et al.; but their study differed markedly from that of Maddi et al. as well as from the current study. For
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instance, Rowlinson and Felner employed a sample of junior and senior high school students; more important, they focused on the contamination of daily hassle items (Kanner, Coyne, Schaefer, & Lazarus, 1981) rather than on the contamination of stressful life events and gauged such contamination in terms of symptoms of psychological disorder rather than neuroticism or NA per se. Such differences are not the only ones that could explain the observed inconsistencies in findings across studies. For example, the 3-year time span for reporting stressful life events used in the current study is longer than normally reported. The potential salience of such a difference is attributable to the argument that stressful events may have their impact within a matter of months and that a longer time interval dilutes the effects of recent events. Therefore, it can be seen that, given the limited number of studies that have been conducted to date, the variety of methods employed, and the differences in results obtained, the effects of NA contamination remain an open issue. In sum, the results of the current study, which largely are supportive of Schroeder and Costa's (1984) findings, indicate that the relationship between reported life events and well-being may be far weaker than previously thought. This conclusion is buttressed by the evidence that suggests that NA not only contaminates the reporting of life events but is associated with various self-reports of well-being (e.g., somatic complaints; see Costa & McCrae, 1980, 1987; McCrae, Bartone, & Costa, 1976). Thus, it seems that extreme caution should be exercised in interpreting observed life events-wellbeing relationships, particularly if the effects of NA on both the predictor and criterion variables have not been assessed. However, if such effects have been assessed and are not negligible, then the option of statistically controlling for NA should be exercised. Until further progress has been made on the NA problem, other remedies appear to be out of our grasp. For instance, such progress might entail the accumulation of normative data indicating which life events are related to NA. However, considering that the current empirically identified NA-contaminated life events appear to overlap only minimally with those subjectively identified in previous studies, one should not anticipate the required data to be readily obtainable. ACKNOWLEDGMENT We appreciate the ideas suggested by anonymous reviewers. REFERENCES Bhagat, R. S., McQuaid, S. J., Lindholm, H., & Segovis, J. (1985). Total life stress: A multimethod validation of the construct and its effect on organizationally valued outcomes and withdrawal behaviors. Journal of Applied Psychology, 70, 202-214.
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Bower, G. H. (1981). Mood and memory. American Psychologist, 36, 129-148. Bower, G. H., & Cohn, P. R. (1982). Emotional influences in memory and thinking: Data and theory. In M. S. Clark & S. T. Fiske (Eds.), Affect and cognition: The seventeenth annual Carnegie Symposium on Cognition (pp. 291-331). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc. Brief, A. P., Burke, M. J., George, J. M., Robinson, B. S., & Webster, J. (1988). Should negative affectivity remain an unmeasured variable in the study of job stress? Journal of Applied Psychology, 73, 193-198. Clark, M. S., & Isen, A. M. (1982). Toward understanding the relationship between feeling states and social behavior. In A. H. Hastorf & A. M. Isen (Eds.), Cognitive social psychology (pp. 73-108). New York: Elsevier. Cohen, J., & Cohen, P. (1983). Applied multiple regression/correlation analysis for the behavioral sciences. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc. Cohen, L., Towbes, L., & Flocco, R. (1988). Effects of induced mood on self-reported life events and perceived and received social support. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 55, 669-674. Costa, P. T., & McCrae, R. R. (1980). Somatic complaints in males as a function of age and neuroticism: A longitudinal analysis. Journal of Behavioral Medicine, 3, 245-257. Costa, P. T., & McCrae, R. R. (1987). Neuroticism, somatic complaints, and disease: Is the bark worse than the bite? Journal of Personality, 55, 229-316. Cronbach, L. J. (1951). Coefficient alpha and the internal structure of tests. Psychometrika, 16, 297-334. Depue, R. A., & Monroe, S. M. (1986). Conceptualization and measurement of human disorder in life stress research: The problem of chronic disturbance. Psychological Bulletin, 99, 36-51. Diener, E., Emmons, R. A., Larsen, R. J., & Griffin, S. (1985). The Satisfaction With Life Scale. Personality Assessment, 49, 71-75. Dohrenwend, B. S., Dohrenwend, B. P., Dodson, M., & Shrout, P. E. (1984). Symptoms, hassles, social supports, and life events: Problems of confounded measures. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 93, 222-230. Dohrenwend, B. S., Krasnoff, L., Askenasy, A. R., & Dohrenwend, B. P. (1978). Exemplification of a method for scaling life events: The PERI Life Events Scale. Journal of Health and Social Behavior, 19, 205-229. Eysenck, H. J. (1962). The Maudsley Personality Inventory. San Diego: Educational and Industrial Testing Service. Eysenck, H. J., & Eysenck, S. B. G. (1968). Manual for the Eysenck Personality Inventory. San Diego: Educational and Industrial Testing Service. Goodstein, L. D. (1954). Interrelationships among several measures of anxiety and hostility. Journal of Consulting Psychology, 18, 35-39. Haney, J. N. (1973). Approach-avoidance reactions by repressors and sensitizers to ambiguity in a structured free-association task. Psychological Reports, 33, 97-98. Kanner, A. D., Coyne, J. C , Schaefer, C , & Lazarus, R. S. (1981). Comparison of two models of stress measurement: Daily hassles and uplifts versus major life events. Journal of Behavioral Medicine, 4, 1-39. Lykken, D. T. (1968). Statistical significance in psychological research. Psychological Bulletin, 70, 151-159. Maddi, S. R., Bartone, P. T., & Puccetti, M. C. (1987). Stressful events are indeed a factor in physical illness: Reply to Schroeder and Costa (1984). Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 52, 833-843. McCrae, R. R., Bartone, P. T., & Costa, P. T. (1976). Age, anxiety, and self-reported health. Aging and Human Development, 7, 49-58. Pennebaker, J. W. (1982). The psychology ofphysical symptoms. New York: Springer-Verlag.
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Phares, E. J. (1961). TAT performance as a function of anxiety and coping-avoiding behavior. Journal of Consulting Psychology, 25, 257-259. Radloff, L. S. (1977). The CES-D Scale: A self-report depression scale for research in the general population. Applied Psychological Measurement, 1, 385-401. Rowlinson, R., & Felner, R. (1988). Major life events, hassles and adaptation in adolescence: Confounding in the conceptualization and measurement of life stress and adjustment revisited. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 55, 432-444. Schroeder, D. H., & Costa, P. T. (1984). Influence of life event stress on physical illness: Substantive effects or methodological flaws? Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 46, 853-863. Taylor, J. A. (1953). A personality scale of manifest anxiety. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 48, 285-290. Watson, D., & Clark, L. A. (1984). Negative affectivity: The disposition to experience aversive emotional states. Psychological Bulletin, 96, 465-490. Winne, J. F. (1951). A scale of neuroticism: An adaptation of the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory. Journal of Clinical Psychology, 7, 117-122. Wyler, A. R., Masuda, M., & Holmes, T. H. (1968). The Seriousness of Illness Rating Scale. Journal of Psychosomatic Research, 11, 363-374. Zahn, T. P. (1960). Size estimation of pictures associated with success and failure as a function of manifest anxiety. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 61, 457-462.
APPENDIX Stressful Life Event Items Event 1. Started school or a training program after not going to school for a long time. 2. Changed jobs for a better one. 3. Changed jobs for a worse one. 4. Had trouble with boss. 5. Demoted at work. 6. Found out that was not going to be promoted at work. 7. Conditions at work got worse, other than demotion or trouble with boss. 8. Promoted on my present job. 9. Had significant success at work. 10. Conditions at work improved, not counting promotion or other personal successes. 11. Laid off from previous job. 12. Fired from previous job. 13. Started a business or profession. 14. Sharply reduced work load. 15. Did not work for an extended period of time before this job. 16. Had trouble with a co-worker or peer. 17. Had trouble with a subordinate. 18. Had trouble with a customer or client. 19. Sharply increased work load.
Correlation With NA*
.32***
.32*** - .16* -.17*
.23** .24** .23**
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Event 20. Spouse returned to work after not having worked for a long time. 21. Spouse changed jobs for one that was not better or worse than the last one. 22. Spouse stopped working, not retirement, for an extended period. 23. Took out a mortgage. 24. Started buying a car, furniture, or other large purchase on an installment plan. 25. Foreclosure of a mortgage or loan. 26. Repossession of a car, furniture, or other items bought on an installment plan. 27. Took a cut in wage or salary without a demotion. 28. Suffered a financial loss of property not related to work. 29. Got a substantial increase in wage or salary without a promotion. 30. Did not get an expected wage or salary increase. 31. Had financial improvement not related to work. 32. Assaulted. 33. Robbed. 34. Got involved in a court case. 35. Increased church or synagogue, club, neighborhood, or other organizational activities. 36. Was not able to take a planned vacation. 37. Took up a new hobby, sport, craft or recreational activity. 38. Dropped a hobby, sport, craft or recreational activity. 39. Made new friends. 40. Broke off a friendship. 41. Close friend died. 42. Unable to move after expecting to be able to move. 43. Built a home or had one built. 44. Remodeled a home. 45. Lost a home through fire, flood, or other disaster. 46. Moved to a better residence or neighborhood. 47. Moved to a worse residence or neighborhood. 48. Moved to a residence or neighborhood no better or no worse than the last one. 49. Expecting a baby. 50. Birth of first child. 51. Birth of a second or later child. 52. Abortion. 53. Miscarriage or stillbirth. 54. Found out that cannot have children. 55. Child died. 56. Adopted a child. 57. Started menopause. 58. New person moved into the household. 59. Person moved out of the household. 60. Someone stayed on in the household after he or she was expected to leave.
Correlation With NAa
.20*
.21**
.18* .25** .24**
.21**
.16*
67
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Event 61. 62. 63. 64. 65. 66. 67. 68. 69. 70.
Serious family argument other than with spouse. A change in the frequency of family get-togethers. Family member other than spouse or child died. Family member other than spouse or child physically ill. Physical illness. Injury. Became engaged. Married. Started a love affair. Relations with spouse changed for the worse, without separation or divorce. 71. Married couple separated. 72. Divorce. 73. Relations with spouse changed for the better. 74. I got back with my spouse after a separation. 75. Marital infidelity. 76. Trouble with in-laws. 77. Spouse died. "Statistically significant correlations with NA are reported. *p < .05. **/> < .01. ***p < .001.
68
Correlation With NAa .18* .19*
.28***
.17*
