Behavior, Health, and Environmental Stress

Cohen, Sheldon; Evans, Gary W.; Stokols, Daniel; Krantz, David S.

doi:10.1007/978-1-4757-9380-2

Cited by 380 publications

(279 citation statements)

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“…One of the consequences of long-term exposure to uncontrollable environmental demands is a diminished sense of mastery indicated by greater susceptibility to helplessness (11)(12)(13)(14). A few childhood poverty studies have shown that both children and adolescents from more disadvantaged backgrounds manifest more helplessness (15,16).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Because the maximum persistence time varied across waves of data collection, the proportion of total time working on the initial, unsolvable puzzle is used as the index of helplessness. This helplessness protocol has been associated with beliefs about personal control, experimental manipulations of control, and chronic exposure to uncontrollable stressors (11)(12)(13)(14).…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Disadvantaged children face a plethora of uncontrollable psychosocial (e.g., family turmoil) and physical (e.g., substandard housing) stressors that may erode a sense of mastery or self-efficacy, rendering lower SES children vulnerable to helplessness (10). Considerable research shows that chronic exposure to uncontrollable stressors induces helplessness (11)(12)(13)(14). A few studies reveal a positive association between poverty and helplessness during childhood (15, 16) and later in adolescence (16).…”

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confidence: 99%

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Childhood poverty and adult psychological well-being

Evans

2016

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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Childhood disadvantage has repeatedly been linked to adult physical morbidity and mortality. We show in a prospective, longitudinal design that childhood poverty predicts multimethodological indices of adult (24 y of age) psychological well-being while holding constant similar childhood outcomes assessed at age 9. Adults from low-income families manifest more allostatic load, an index of chronic physiological stress, higher levels of externalizing symptoms (e.g., aggression) but not internalizing symptoms (e.g., depression), and more helplessness behaviors. In addition, childhood poverty predicts deficits in adult short-term spatial memory.childhood disadvantage | psychological health | stress | helplessness | memory A n increasingly large body of work in public health and medicine reveals that childhood disadvantage is prospectively linked to adult physical morbidity and mortality (1-4). Moreover, early disadvantage may shape the long-term health trajectories of individuals in ways that are difficult to dislodge by subsequent upward social mobility. The present study builds upon and extends this life-course research on childhood disadvantage and adult physical health in two respects. First, we investigate psychological rather than physical health outcomes among adults as a function of childhood poverty. We examine multimethodological indices of adult psychological adjustment including mental health symptoms, short-term memory, helplessness behavior, and allostatic load. Second, because we have measures of these constructs early in childhood, we conduct prospective, longitudinal analyses, testing whether adults from more disadvantaged backgrounds manifest lower levels of psychological well-being 15 y later, independently of childhood well-being assessed at age 9.Thus, several measures of psychological well-being were investigated between ages 9 and 24 in relation to childhood poverty. The first of these, short-term memory, describes the number of bits of information individuals can hold in immediate memory. Short-term memory capacity is important because it influences the encoding of information into long-term memory and is associated with cognitive development among children (5, 6). Cross-sectional studies with elementary school children in two different samples reveal a positive association between household SES and shortterm memory span (7,8), and a field experiment shows that Mexican preschool children in households randomly receiving cash transfers of differing amounts, conditional on healthcare utilization and school attendance, yields a positive cash transfer dose-response for short-term memory (9). An important shortcoming in the poverty and memory literature is the paucity of longitudinal data, and no studies have investigated childhood SES and adult short-term memory.An aspect of psychological health that has garnered little attention in the poverty literature is helplessness. Disadvantaged children face a plethora of uncontrollable psychosocial (e.g., family turmoil) and physical (e.g., substandard ho...

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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confidence: 99%

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Childhood poverty and adult psychological well-being

Evans

2016

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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“…This finding contradicts with the theory of environmental stress [21], [22] where work environment has enduring features that influence whether or not stress is produced.. However, the strong relationship between SBS and stress demand further investigation.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 64%

“…Theoretical underpinning on how indoor work environment influences stress could be traced back from the seminal work of Lazarus and Cohen [20], Evans [21] and a few others [22] on environmental stress. According to Evans, stress is a function of variation in environmental quality.…”

Section: Indoor Work Environment and Stressmentioning

confidence: 99%

Structural Model for the Effects of Perceived Indoor Work Environment on Sick Building Syndrome and Stress

Abdullah¹,

Hamid²,

Shaif

et al. 2016

MATEC Web Conf.

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Abstract. Sick Building syndrome (SBS) and stress have a prevalent influence on organizational productivity and competitiveness. Unhealthy employees not only tend to have high medical leaves but also low productivity due to ailments and discomforts. Studies that investigate the effects of indoor work environment on Sick Building Syndrome (SBS) have yielded mixed results while their effect on stress has not been empirically established. Furthermore, studies that simultaneously investigate both SBS and stress are almost non-existent. Thus, this study aimed to study the effects of perceived indoor work environment on SBS and stress and the link between SBS and stress. A crosssectional survey participated by 598 employees from various industries was conducted from September to October 2015. Data were analyzed using Partial Least Square Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM) to assess both the measurement model and the path structure. The results suggest that indoor work environment has significant yet the weak effect on SBS while it has no effect on stress. However, SBS has a strong significant relationship with stress. The implication of this study on the importance of conducive indoor work environment is discussed with suggestions for future studies.

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Environmental Psychology

Moser¹,

Uzzell

2003

Handbook of Psychology

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This review of environmental psychology looks to the past, present, and future of this growing and important area of psychology. The environment, far from being a silent witness to human actions, is an integral part of the plot. The interdisciplinary origins and applied emphasis of environmental psychology have both conspired to prevent a straightforward and uncontentious definition of the discipline. Recent definitions adopt an inclusive, holistic, and transactional perspective on people‐environment relations. Various theories have been developed in environmental psychology: arousal theory, environmental load, adaptation level theory within a behaviorist and determinist paradigm; control, stress adaptation, behavioral elasticity, cognitive mapping, and environmental evaluation within an interactionist paradigm; and behavior settings, affordance theory, and theories of place, place identity, and place attachment within transactionalism. Environmental psychology deals with people's homes, the workplaces and leisure settings, the visual impact of buildings, the negative effects of cities, the restorative role of nature, and environmental attitudes and sustainable behavior. The issues at the forefront of the political and environmental agenda at the beginning of the twenty‐first century—human rights, well‐being and quality of life, globalization, and sustainability—need to be addressed and tackled by environmental psychologists in a way that incorporates both cross‐cultural and temporal dimensions.

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Behavior, Health, and Environmental Stress

Cited by 380 publications

References 0 publications

Childhood poverty and adult psychological well-being

Childhood poverty and adult psychological well-being

Structural Model for the Effects of Perceived Indoor Work Environment on Sick Building Syndrome and Stress

Environmental Psychology

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