psychosocial stressors and risk or resilience

There is growing recognition that identification with social groups can protect and enhance health and well-being, thereby constituting a kind of "social cure." The present research explores the role of control as a novel mediator of the relationship between shared group identity and well-being. Five studies provide evidence for this process. Group identification predicted significantly greater perceived personal control across 47 countries (Study 1), and in groups that had experienced success and failure (Study 2)...

In the current studies, the authors examined how peers influence friendship choices through individuals' perceptions of similarity between their own and others' Big Five traits. Self-reported and peer-reported data were gathered from 3 independent samples using longitudinal round-robin designs. Peers' ratings of how similar 2 persons appeared in extraversion and agreeableness predicted friendship formation likelihood between these 2 persons in all samples. This association was mediated by perceived similarity...

No abstract text is available yet for this article.

PURPOSE: To use an ecological momentary assessment design to examine the links between momentary negative affect and cortisol in a sample of adolescents preparing to transition to college. Guided by a risk and resilience framework, we also explored whether important ecological factors, perceived discrimination and social support, moderated the momentary associations between negative affect and youths' cortisol. METHODS: Adolescents (N = 77) provided salivary samples and diary reports of affect and experiences five times a day over 3 days...

In the context of stress-internal or external events that threaten the individual's physical or psychological well-being-the human body signals distress along with disruptions in physiological regulation. When stress-related disruptions are extreme or are not limited in time, they may result in a broad range of somatic, behavioral, and cognitive symptoms. This article aims to (1) provide clinicians with a theoretical framework for understanding the body systems that mediate stress-induced somatic symptoms, and (2) illustrate how this framework can be applied clinically...

The past decade brought a remarkable increase in the number and quality of biosocial studies of family processes. The current review summarizes recent advances in biosocial family research by providing key exemplars of emerging research paradigms. Research in the past decade has substantiated the claim in the previous Decade Review (Booth, Carver, & Granger, 2000) that bidirectional influences between all levels of analysis are paramount. There is an emerging consensus that integrating factors at multiple biological and social levels is highly informative...

In this perspective paper, we emphasize the importance that integrative mechanisms, and especially the GC (glucocorticoid) stress response, can play in the ability of vertebrates to cope with ongoing global change. The GC stress response is an essential mediator of allostasis (i.e., the responses of an organism to a perturbation) that aims at maintaining stability (homeostasis) despite changing conditions. The GC stress response is a complex mechanism that depends on several physiological components and aims at promoting immediate survival at the expense of other life-history components (e...

The brain is constantly adapting to a changing environment. It detects environmental stimuli, integrates that information with internal states, and engages appropriate behavioral and physiological responses. This process of stability through change is termed "allostasis", and serves as a mechanism by which an organism can adapt to a changing environment to function optimally, and ultimately ensure survival. The ability to adapt to stressors in the environment by "bending" but not "breaking" can be considered as "resilience"...

BACKGROUND: Adaptation is key to survival. An organism must adapt to environmental challenges in order to be able to thrive in the environment in which they find themselves. Resilience can be thought of as a measure of the ability of an organism to adapt, and to withstand challenges to its stability. In higher animals, the brain is a key player in this process of adaptation and resilience, and through a process known as "allostasis" can obtain "stability through change"; protecting homeostasis in the face of stressors in the environment...