Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2013 May;24(5):733-41.
doi: 10.1177/0956797612462222. Epub 2013 Mar 26.

The wear and tear of daily stressors on mental health

Susan T Charles  1 , Jennifer R Piazza, Jacqueline Mogle, Martin J Sliwinski, David M Almeida
Affiliations

The wear and tear of daily stressors on mental health

Susan T Charles et al. Psychol Sci. 2013 May.

Abstract

Researchers assert that affective responses to seemingly minor daily events have long-term implications for mental health, yet this phenomenon has rarely been investigated. In the current study, we examined how levels of daily negative affect and affective reactivity in response to daily stressors predicted general affective distress and self-reported anxiety and depressive disorders 10 years after they were first assessed. Across eight consecutive evenings, participants (N = 711; age = 25 to 74 years) reported their daily stressors and their daily negative affect. Increased levels of negative affect on nonstressor days were related to general affective distress and symptoms of an affective disorder 10 years later. Heightened affective reactivity to daily stressors predicted greater general affective distress and an increased likelihood of reporting an affective disorder. These findings suggest that the average levels of negative affect that people experience and how they respond to seemingly minor events in their daily lives have long-term implications for their mental health.

Keywords: adult development; affective distress; affective reactivity; aging; emotion; life expectations; negative affect; stressors.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The authors declared that they had no conflicts of interest with respect to their authorship or the publication of this article.

References

    1. Almeida DM. Resilience and vulnerability to daily stressors assessed via diary methods. Current Directions in Psychological Science. 2005;14:64–68.
    1. Almeida DM, Wethington E, Kessler RC. The Daily Inventory of Stressful Experiences (DISE): An Interview-Based Approach for Measuring Daily Stressors. Assessment. 2002;9:41–55. - PubMed
    1. American Psychiatric Association. Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders. 3. Washington, DC: Author; 1987. rev.
    1. Beck AT, Rush AJ, Shaw BF, Emery G. Cognitive therapy of depression. New York: The Guilford Press; 1979.
    1. Bolger N, Zuckerman A. A framework for studying personality in the stress process. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. 1995;69:890–902. - PubMed

Publication types

MeSH terms