Does Stress-Related Growth Really Matter for Adolescents' Day-to-Day Adaptive Functioning?. (May 2017)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Mansfield, Cade D.; Diamond, Lisa M.
• Is Part Of: Journal of early adolescence. Volume 37:Number 5(2017)
• Page Start: 677
• Page End: 695
• Publication Date: 2017-05
• Subjects: stress -- social competence -- cognitive development/critical thinking/reasoning -- coping -- developmental processes; Adolescence -- United States -- Periodicals; Adolescent -- Periodicals; Adolescence -- États-Unis -- Périodiques; 305.235
• DOI: 10.1177/0272431615620665
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0272-4316

Abstract

Adolescent stress-related growth refers to enhancement in an adolescent's cognitive-affective or social resources as a result of experiencing stressors. We tested whether adolescents reporting high levels of stress-related growth showed superior adaptation outcomes on a day-to-day basis. Participants ( n = 91; females = 46, age = 14) completed a questionnaire measure of stress-related growth and kept a diary of emotional and interpersonal functioning for 10 consecutive days. Individual differences in cognitive-affective stress-related growth moderated associations between daily stress levels and adaptive coping behaviors, whereas individual differences in social stress-related growth moderated associations between daily mother-child conflict and end-of-day negative affect. This study provides the first empirical demonstration of domain-specific forms of stress-related growth during adolescence.