EVENT-SPECIFIC CONTROL, SALIVARY CORTISOL, AND THE DAILY STRESS PROCESS
Open Access
- Author:
- Banks, Sean Robert
- Graduate Program:
- Human Development and Family Studies
- Degree:
- Doctor of Philosophy
- Document Type:
- Dissertation
- Date of Defense:
- July 24, 2009
- Committee Members:
- David Manuel Almeida, Dissertation Advisor/Co-Advisor
David Manuel Almeida, Committee Chair/Co-Chair
Steven Howard Zarit, Committee Member
Melissa Hardy, Committee Member
Laura Klein, Committee Member - Keywords:
- Event-specific control
Salivary cortisol
Daily stress
Diurnal cortisol
Perceived control
Multi-level models - Abstract:
- Perception of control over a specific stressful event plays an important role in the potential consequences of the stressor. Previous studies have documented the role of control in the stress process, but have often looked to trait measures of control that use an individual’s global perceptions of how he or she affects the environment. In order to more accurately depict the daily stress process, perception of control over specific stressors is an important factor to include in conjunction with trait measure of control. The present research consists of three papers investigating event-specific control in the stress process and one potential biomarker of stress, salivary cortisol. Participants for all three studies come from the initial set of respondents participating in the second wave of the National Study of Daily Experiences (NSDE, N = 1,265). Participants for the NSDE come from a subsample of the National Survey of Midlife in the United States (MIDUS II). The first paper examines daily variation in event-specific control (ESC) and how it is associated with trait measures of control. Results indicated more within-person variation in ESC than between-person variation. The second study is a methodological paper focused on salivary cortisol, a hormone known to be a specific physiological outcome of interest in the stress process. The discussion centers on challenges researchers face when collecting salivary cortisol in large field studies where researchers have no face-to-face interaction with participants and the resultant implications on the validity of measured salivary cortisol diurnal rhythm parameters. Study three combines findings from papers one and two to investigate the predictive nature of event-specific control on salivary cortisol. Results indicate that ESC is a significant predictor of the daily decline slope of salivary cortisol and that this relationship is moderated by age. These findings suggest event-specific perceptions of control play an integral role in the stress process. Future studies investigating the stress process would benefit from the inclusion of ESC as a predictor and potential moderator of psychological and physiological outcomes.