Personal distress

Link to risk and resistance

In 1987, one study conducted cross-sectional and longitudinal research on a community sample of over 400 adults and their children to examine the link between risk, resistance, and personal distress. It can be stated risk factors consisted of negative life events and avoidance coping strategies and, for children, parental emotional and physical distress. On the contrary, resistance factors were self-confidence, an easygoing disposition, and family support. Furthermore, outcome criteria were global depression and physical symptoms in adults, and psychological maladjustment and physical health problems in their children.

The survey findings showed that persons who simultaneously experience high risk and low resistance are especially vulnerable to personal distress. Moreover, the results demonstrated that the risk and resistance variables are significant predictors of concurrent and future psychological and physical distress in adults. In children, the findings demonstrated that parental dysfunction, especially maternal risk factors and family support, are significantly linked to distress. However, these findings also suggested that, in comparison to adults, children may be more resilient to past negative life events affecting their current or future levels of distress. Furthermore, it was noted that children are affected more by mothers' than fathers' functioning, which is congruent with the conventional role of mothers as primary caregivers and with children's relatively stronger maternal attachment relationships.