Stress, Social Support, and Behavior Symptoms in Middle Childhood

This research concerns the distinction between stress associated with major life events and that associated with "daily hassles" as well as the possible moderating influences of social support. We analyzed data from 159 school-age children, 6 and 9 years old, and their mothers to examine the relationship between stress and behavior symptoms. We considered a subsample of 35 of these families to be a high stress group because of marital separation or divorce within the 4-year period prior to the study. The findings documented the expected relationships between behavior symptoms and stress, whether operationalized as life events or hassles. Undesirable life events showed the strongest relationship to behavior symptoms. Multiple-regression models with R2 = .32 (p < .0001) included significant main effects for stress, social support, and some interactions between them. Evidence was provided for a moderating or buffering influence of social support on the relationship between stress and illness. However, the model including interaction effects did not account for appreciably more variance, suggesting that the simpler, more parsimonious main effects conceptualization was at least as useful, if not more so.