In this paper, the study "A Longitudinal Examination of Stress Generation in Depressive and Anxiety Disorders” published in the Journal of Abnormal Psychology will be discussed. First, an overview of the study will be presented. Second, key strengths and weakness of the study’s methods and procedures, as well as its results, will be argued. Third, a recommendation for how the study could be improved will be stated, and finally a conclusion will sum up the results of this review.
The study’s goal is to expand on existing research on stress. The study examines both interpersonal and non interpersonal factors that contribute to life stress. Life stress is the difficulties stress causes in a person’s inability to perform basic functions, such as work, and love. Life stress can be broken down into interpersonal/noninterpersonal and independent/dependent stressors. An interpersonal stressor is, for example, marital stress, or stress with a family member or friend. A Noninterpersonal stressor is for example, stress related to work, or to health problems. Both interpersonal and noninterpersonal stressors are considered dependent stress which means the stress relates from a person’s actions, as opposed to independent stress which relates to circumstances outside of a person’s control, such as a natural disaster or death of a loved one.
The study also looks at dependent episodic life stress. Episodic life stress are stressors that emerge in certain period’s of a person’s life, as opposed to chronic life stress, that is pervasive in the person’s psychological history. The study tries to determine what generates stress, and to see if it is some causal related, such as one stressor brings about another stressor, or if stress is along a continuum in a person’s lifespan with correlation to personality, and people prone to depression. Studies show that depression is a predictor for future life stress episodes, and people who suffer from depression are likely to “generate dependent interpersonal stress.
In the study, signs of neuroticism and extraversion, two possible links to depression, anxiety related disorders, and stress, were studied in test subjects chosen from the Youth Emotion Project over a three year period. Individuals were chosen based on results from scores from the neuroticism scale of the revised Eyseneck Personality questionnaire. The study concluded that neuroticism has a high risk factor associated with depression, but extraversion did not indicate as much of a correlation between depression and stress.
One strength of the study is that it is a longitudinal study, which means that test subjects were tracked for a long period. Subjects were all in their junior year of high school, which could be considered a weakness of the study because the test pool is only focused on late adolescence, so children, adults, and older individuals did not factor into the results of the study. Another strength of the study is that it was original. It tried to link extraversion and neuroticism to depression and stress.
A weakness of the study is a general weakness we can attribute to personality tests. Personality tests are good for giving broad sweeping descriptions of mood and the cross-relations between mood and interpersonal relationships; however, every person has a unique set of experiences that no personality test can completely account for in mapping a correlation between mood, depression, and predictors life stress.
One recommendation for this study is to use a variety of other personality sorters that are available to researchers. For example, the Kiersey-Temperament Sorter could be an interesting testing instrument to find correlation between character types and propensity for stress. Another recommendation is to do another longitudinal study on adults, and maybe one on people in assisted living facilities, where the risk of depression is high. While focusing on teenagers is a good idea, especially since teens have a high risk factor to depression and other problems, it would be a holistic approach to this study to broaden the age range.
In conclusion, the review presented a novel way to correlate existing research on depression and stress with personality theory concepts. The hypothesis that extraversion might correlate to higher chances of a person exhibiting episodic dependent life stress did not match the results, but the research suggests that neuroticism plays a large part.
References
Uliaszek, A. A., Zinbarg, R. E., Mineka, S., Craske, M. G., Griffith, J. W., Sutton, J. M.,
Hammen, C. (2012, 12). A longitudinal examination of stress generation in depressive and anxiety disorders. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 121(1), 4-15. doi: 10.1037/ a0025835
How has the addition of the New Testament changed the Hebrew Bible into the Old Testament of the Christian Bible?
The Bible is not a book in the modern meaning of the word. The Bible does not have one author. In fact, the Bible is a collection of multiple texts, from multiple sources, with multiple authors, and in many cases, revisions, additions, and complex layers of historical interpretation. If I go to the bookstore and ask to see a copy of the Bible, I will be shown hundreds of versions. If I ask to see the Hebrew Bible, it will contain the five books of the Torah (Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, and Deuteronomy), the Book of the Prophets, and a third section of Writings (Hauer and Young 2011, pp 5-6).
Even to call these texts a book is misleading. The Torah is a collection of ancient texts written in Hebrew, and the originals were written on scrolls, and then copied. What we have today is not an original, but a series of copies (pp. 10-11). What we have are years of careful transcription of ancient sources, as well as a series of translations of the text.
For Christians, the Bible includes everything I mentioned above, but they call this collection of texts “The Old Testament.” The reason for this is that Christians believe that the Hebrew Bible promised the coming of the fulfillment of prophecy, and the Hebrew Bible is a testament, or witness to something in the future.
What Christians call the New Testament is a collection of four texts called the Gospels in addition to the Acts of the Apostles, as well as a series of letters, and at the end a work commonly called Revelation (p. 7). The New Testament comprises texts that were written in Greek and recount stories about the life of Jesus, a Jewish preacher who was murdered by the Roman government, and is the central figure of Christianity.
For Christians, the addition of the New Testament changes the interpretation of what Jews call the Hebrew Bible. For Christians who read the Hebrew Bible, they use an understanding inspired by the teachings of Jesus. For example, passages in the Hebrew Bible, then, will have completely different meanings for a Christian than it would for a Jew. In this way, the addition of the New Testament is an interesting study in both the development of religious practices, and how religious texts become reincorporated and take on different meanings than their original purpose and intention.
What is the procedure that you follow in trying to understand the Bible?
I am interested in reading the Bible as a historical document. I understand that when I read the Bible I am trying to peel back several layers of meaning that include historical layers, the language layer, and cultural meaning. First there is a layer of language. I first realize that the Bible is written in either Hebrew or Greek. If I am to attempt to understand a passage from the Bible, I have to understand the original language. If I am reading from the Hebrew Bible, I understand that it is written in Hebrew, except for some books written in Greek.
Also, I try to place the historical context of the passage. I try to answer the question, "when was this particular passage first written?" The answer sounds simple, but it is complicated. For example, when I read the first book of the Torah, Genesis, I learn that one author has not written it at one specific time in history. In fact, it is written by many authors, over many hundreds of years, with revisions.
The method of historical criticism teaches me that I have to understand these difficult challenges if I am to understand the place a particular passage from the Bible has both in history and its relationship to either Jewish, Christian, or in some cases, Islamic history. For example, the story told in the Hebrew Bible of Genesis about Joseph, originally written in Hebrew, is also told in the Qur’an, but written in Arabic. I then realize that reading the Bible is not the same thing as reading a book published in 2014. I have to understand the history, language, and how one text has been interpreted and reinterpreted across diverse cultures and religions.
References
Hauer, C. E., & Young, W. A. (2011). Introduction to the Bible. Upper Saddle River, N.J: Pearson
Education.
