Negative affectivity and the reporting of stressful life events.
Maddi, Bartone, and Puccetti (1987) and Schroeder and Costa (1984) reported inconsistent findings regarding the impact of negative affectivity (NA; i.e., neuroticism) contaminated life event items on observed life event-illness relationships. Here, unlike the previous studied, such contaminated items were nonjudgmentally identified. Among a sample of managers and professionals, it was found that NA-contaminated items correlated significantly with three measures of well-being (depression, life satisfaction, and physical symptoms) and that uncontaminated items were unassociated with the well-being indicators. Moreover, in two of three cases, the correlations between contaminated items and the well-being measures were significantly different from the correlations between uncontaminated items and the well-being indicators. Therefore, we concluded that prior life event-well-being findings are inflated considerably by the use of NA-contaminated events. Suggestions for future life events research that incorporate the NA construct are detailed.
Brett
J F
JF
New York University.
Brief
A P
AP
Burke
M J
MJ
George
J M
JM
Webster
J
J
D000328:Adult; D003863:Depression / Q000523:psychology; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008016:Life Change Events; D008297:Male; D008347:Manifest Anxiety Scale; D008875:Middle Aged; D009497:Neurotic Disorders / Q000523:psychology*; D010549:Personal Satisfaction; D011594:Psychometrics; D011602:Psychophysiologic Disorders / Q000523:psychology*; D012307:Risk Factors; D013001:Somatoform Disorders / Q000523:psychology