Coping with loss in later life: The effects of discursive activity on stress and health
Abstract
The study developed and tested a theoretical model designed explain how the verbalization of emotional stress influences the cognitive, affective, and physiological elements of stress and promotes health. The model describes a mediated causal relationship whereby negative emotions mediate the indirect influence of cognitive appraisals on health variables. The model was tested with 90 older adults who selected the most upsetting recent loss they had experienced and were assigned to either write (for 20 minutes a day for three days) about their thoughts and feelings regarding that loss (experimentals) or to write about a mundane topic (controls). Measures of appraisals about the loss, feelings about the loss, self-esteem, self-mastery, depression, and physical symptoms were collected immediately before writing, immediately after writing, and 8 weeks after writing. The verbalization manipulation did not produce the expected between-groups differences on any of the dependent variables. Supplemental analyses did support the hypothesized mediated model whereby negative feelings mediated the indirect influence of some appraisals on both depression and physical health.
Degree
Ph.D.
Advisors
Burleson, Purdue University.
Subject Area
Communication|Cognitive therapy|Gerontology|Psychotherapy
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