Domain-Specific Daily Hassles, Anxiety, and Delinquent Behaviors among Low-Income, Urban Youth

Dispositional Active Coping Predicts Patterns of Adolescents' Cortisol Responsivity in the Context of School-related Stressors

OBJECTIVE

The goal of this study was to examine the direct and conditional effects of active coping and prior exposure to school-related stressors on cortisol reactivity and recovery in response to an academically salient, social stress task.

METHOD

Participants included N= 758 adolescents (50% male; M age = 12.03 years, SD = .49) enrolled in the 7th grade in Title 1 middle schools. Adolescents were predominantly ethnic minorities (62% Hispanic, 12% non-Hispanic White, 11% non-Hispanic Black, 7% Native American, and 8% "other"). Youth completed self-reported assessments of their dispositional use of active coping strategies, prior exposure to school hassles, pubertal status, medication use, and relevant demographic information. In addition, youth engaged in an academically salient group public speaking task adapted for adolescents and provided salivary cortisol sample pre-task, immediately post-task, 15-, and 30-minutes post-task.

RESULTS

Results from piecewise latent growth curve modeling revealed that active coping independently predicted lower cortisol reactivity to the stress task. Furthermore, active coping was associated with slower cortisol recovery when adolescents reported not having experienced any school hassles in the past three months and faster recovery when having experienced several school hassles in the past three months. Results from multinomial logistic regressions revealed that greater use of active coping strategies was less likely to predict a hyper-reactive pattern of cortisol responding compared to other patterns.

CONCLUSION

Findings provide support for active coping as a way to promote adaptive physiological responding to school-related stressors among ethnically diverse youth residing in low-income communities.

Depression, anxiety, and stress symptoms and coping strategies in the context of the sudden course modality shift in the Spring 2020 semester

The COVID-19 pandemic created a host of difficulties for college students. There is research noting the unique vulnerability of this population's DASS symptoms and further connections of coping strategies. The current study aims to provide a snapshot of this unique time in higher education by examining the relationship between perceived difficulty, retrospectively, in the Spring 2020 semester and DASS symptoms in the Fall 2020 semester, and moderators of coping strategies in a sample of USA university students (n = 248; Mage = 21.08, SD = 4.63; 79.3% = Female). The results yielded a clear predictor relationship between perceived difficulty and symptoms of DASS. However, only problem-solving coping strategy proved a significant moderator for stress; surprisingly, problem-solving coping appeared to exacerbate the relationship. Implications for clinicians and higher education are discussed.

Stable or changing well-being? Daily hassles and life satisfaction of Czech adolescents over the last three decades

While the assumption that the sociopolitical and economic situation affects adolescents’ well-being, encompassing life satisfaction and a positive sense of self, is plausible, few studies have confirmed such macrosocial influences. The case of the Czech Republic offers an example of a society transitioning from totalitarian government (from 1989) to western democracy. Our study provides statistical description of Czech adolescents’ well-being over the past 30 years in association with the subjective perception of everyday problems. These daily hassles represent experiences and conditions of daily living that have been appraised as salient and harmful or threatening to adolescents’ well-being. We analyzed four samples of adolescents aged 14–17 years surveyed at four time points over the last three decades—1992, 2001, 2011, and 2019, total N = 4,005 (1992: 255, 2001: 306, 2011: 363, 2019: 3081; 54.6% females). The results show that life satisfaction, self-esteem, and self-reported daily hassles changed only marginally from 1992 to 2019 with small differences related to the post-revolution 1992 cohort. Adolescents reported increasing problems in school, relationships with parents, sports, and leisure time over the study period. A model linking daily hassles and self-esteem to life satisfaction across four cohorts showed that daily hassles strongly predicted life satisfaction except in the post-revolution cohort of 1992 when life satisfaction was also the lowest. The effect was slightly higher in females. Across the cohorts, gender differences in life satisfaction changed from males being more satisfied in 1992 to females being more satisfaction in 2019. Limitations stemming from sampling differences across cohorts are discussed.