Dissertation Research: Stress and Social Organization in Rural Compared to Urban Communities in Botswana

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Some studies support the hypothesis that impersonal urban environments cause greater stress than do kin-based rural environments. This project will refine this hypothesis by addressing three questions: (i) how do potentially stressful socioecological factors (e.g., wage dependency, community cooperation, expectations of affluence) relate to the urban-rural continuum; (ii) how do such socioecological factors influence stress; and (iii) how do individual differences (e.g., age, personality, life-history) influence stress. The study will compare 70 individuals in two Botswana communities: a remote village with under 500 population, and a low-middle income neighborhood of Gaborone with 150,000 population. During nine-months field research, participant observation and key informants will provide an ethnographic foundation for more focused methods. Data on independent variables (socioecological and individual differences) will be collected from each subject during four separate interviews: (1) one-hour structured life-history; (2) one-hour structured social networks; (3) two-hours structured personality; and (4) one-and-a-half-hours cultural models. Stress (dependent variable) and daily experience will be assessed during three-days using twice-daily visits to collect samples of saliva and observations of immediate life-history experiences. Saliva samples will be analyzed using a radioimmunoassay procedure to determine content of cortisol on return from Botswana. Analyses will use repeated measures design multivariate linear regression.