Early Life Antecedents Predicting Adult Daily Affective Reactivity to Stress

当人们感受到压力时，他们的积极情绪(如喜悦、兴奋、满足)往往会减少，而他们的负面情绪(如焦虑、沮丧和愤怒)往往会增加。然而，人们的情绪随着压力的变化而变化的程度各不相同。这就是所谓的“对压力的日常情感反应”。情感反应性越强，结果越差，包括更差的幸福感，更高的心理和身体健康问题的风险，以及更早死亡。这个项目调查童年的经历，如经历虐待和压力或接受高质量的父母教育，是否以及如何预测成年后对压力的日常情感反应。该项目还调查了成年期应对策略的使用，如寻求支持、锻炼或吸毒或酗酒，可能会改变或解释童年经历与成年后对压力的日常情感反应之间的联系。这项研究为设计有效的干预措施，帮助人们建设性地应对日常压力提供了信息。这个项目建立在明尼苏达州风险和适应纵向研究的基础上，这是一项纵向研究，跟踪调查了50多年来出生在贫困中的人。现在，参与者年龄在50岁，这个项目让他们完成14项日常调查，反映每天发生的压力事件，以及他们在积极和消极的情绪、寻求支持、物质使用和锻炼方面的反应。这些数据被用来测试早期经历是否通过观察参与者在婴儿期和儿童期收集的虐待、生活压力和母亲敏感性的指标来预测日常对压力的情感反应。关于早期经历如何塑造成人压力反应性的两个相互竞争的理论模型进行了测试。压力敏感化模型认为，不良的早期经历导致成年后对应激源有更大的反应，而积极的早期经历具有保护作用。压力接种模型提出，早期逆境程度很高或非常低的人在成年后对压力的反应会更强，而经历中度早期逆境的人对压力的反应会更少。对缓和和调节效应的详细分析决定了在应对压力变化时是否倾向于寻求支持、锻炼和物质使用，或者解释了早期经历和日常情感反应之间的联系。结果将与干预和政策组织分享，以鼓励申请。这一奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

When people experience stress, their positive emotions (e.g., joy, excitement, contentment) often decrease, and their negative emotions (e.g., anxiety, frustration, and anger) tend to increase. However, people vary in how much their emotions change with stress. This is called "daily affective reactivity to stress." Having greater affective reactivity is associated with poor outcomes including worse well-being, higher risks of mental and physical health problems, and dying earlier. This project investigates whether and how experiences during childhood, such as experiencing maltreatment and stress or receiving high quality parenting, predict daily affective reactivity to stress in adulthood. This project also investigates how the use of coping strategies in adulthood, such as seeking support, exercising, or using drugs or alcohol, might change or explain the links between childhood experiences and daily affective reactivity to stress in adulthood. The research informs the design of effective interventions for helping people respond constructively to daily stress. This project builds on the Minnesota Longitudinal Study of Risk and Adaptation, a longitudinal study that has followed a sample of people born into poverty for over 50 years. Now, with participants at age 50, this project has them complete 14 daily surveys reflecting on the stressful events that occur each day and how they respond in terms of positive and negative affect, support seeking, substance use, and exercise. These data are used to test whether early experiences predict daily affective reactivity to stress by looking at measures of maltreatment, life stress, and maternal sensitivity that were collected during the participants’ infancy and childhood. Two competing theoretical models of how early experiences shape adult stress reactivity are tested. The stress sensitization model proposes that adverse early experiences lead to greater reactivity to stressors in adulthood, with positive early experiences having protective effects. The stress inoculation model proposes that individuals with very high or very low early adversity will be more reactive to stress in adulthood, and individuals who experience moderate early adversity will be less reactive to stress. Detailed analyses of moderation and mediation effects determine whether tendencies to engage in support seeking, exercise, and substance use in response to stress change or explain links between early experiences and daily affective reactivity to stress. Results are shared with intervention and policy organizations to encourage application.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.