Reciprocal Relationships Between Life Events and Psychological Distress

We estimate a model specifying a reciprocal relationship between psychological distress and life events. The data are from two waves of an ongoing longitudinal study of adaptations to stress. Subjects are 4397 individuals who were tested in the seventh grade (time 1) and as young adults (time 4). The analysis uses the LISREL 8 program to estimate a structural model with latent variables. The model tested specifies life events as both consequences and antecedents of psychological distress, controlling for gender, race/ethnicity and SES. The life events in the aggregate mediate and partially decompose the relationship between psychological distress during adolescence and young adulthood. Time 1 psychological distress has significant positive effects on getting fired, getting married, having a child, having someone in the household become seriously ill, becoming pregnant outside of marriage, getting a divorce, moving out of the parents' home, having an abortion and getting arrested, and has significant negative effects on graduating from junior high, starting and graduating from high school, starting college, starting a job, getting promoted and borrowing money. The following life events had significant positive effects on time 4 psychological distress: having someone in the household become seriously ill, getting fired, starting high school and divorce. The following life events had significant negative effects on time 4 psychological distress: graduating junior high school, graduating from high school, starting college, getting promoted, receiving more income and borrowing money.