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Age Differences in Stress, Social Resources, and Well-Being in Middle and Older Age

^a German Centre for Research on Ageing, Heidelberg, Germany

Mike Martin, German Centre for Research on Ageing, Bergheimer Strasse 20, 69115 Heidelberg, Germany E-mail: mmartin{at}dzfa.uni-heidelberg.de.

Decision Editor: Toni C. Antonucci, PhD

	Abstract

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The present study examines the interrelationships among the constructs of social resources, stress, and well-being in middle-aged and older adults. Two samples of 489 middle-aged adults (41–43 years) and 449 older adults (61–63 years) from the Interdisciplinary Longitudinal Study of Adult Development were compared with respect to the availability of social resources, levels of stress, and well-being. The data were used to construct separate structural equation models explaining the influence of stress and social resources on well-being in the two groups. The results indicate higher levels of health-related stress and similar levels of social resources in the older group. Structural equation models and examination of total and indirect effects confirmed that a stress-suppression model has the best fit in explaining the interrelationships between stress, social resources, and well-being. There was a strong effect of stress on well-being, no direct effect of social resources on well-being, and a mediating effect of stress on well-being. The relative contributions of stress and resources to well-being were comparable between age groups.

IN many studies on adaptational responses to stress, the availability of social resources plays an important role in explaining how people cope with stressful environments or critical life experiences (e.g., Holahan, Moos, and Bonin 1997; Krause 1997; Moos, Fenn, Billings, and Moos 1989; Simons and West 1985). We define as resources the perceived quality of available social contacts and the satisfaction with social activities. It has often been claimed that the availability and the appraisal of social resources can help to reduce the negative effects of critical life events, such as medical operations ( Oxman and Hull 1997), the loss of a partner, or decreasing functional abilities ( Baltes 1995; Rook and Schuster 1996). Young and Glasgow 1998 have even suggested that social resources can compensate for disadvantages caused by declining social status and health status. In general, the finding that social resources and important aspects of well-being are related seems to be well established ( House, Landis, and Umberson 1988). Although the magnitude of the effect is rather small in many age groups ( Holahan and Moos 1994), the study of social resources in older adults deserves more interest because it may help to identify important psychological factors that mediate age-related differences in the relationship between negative environmental influences or stress on one hand and subjective well-being and morale on the other hand ( Bosworth and Schaie 1997; Fernandez, Mutran and Reitzes 1998).

In very old age, the increased likelihood of critical life events such as illnesses and extremely low levels of available coping resources make it possible to examine the contributions of different kinds of resources to adaptation. Especially in very old age, because of the loss of other individual resources, social resources may be of increased importance for the successful coping with critical life events. Therefore, it is not surprising that the association between social resources and functioning seems to increase with age ( Camacho, Strawbridge, Cohen, and Kaplan 1993). Considering the substantial levels of stress in very old adults indicated by higher levels of morbidity, mortality, lower levels of income, and often less appropriate housing, it seems adequate that age-related changes in the relationship between social resources and stress are the focus of much research in the field. In fact, to reduce the negative effects of factors such as low income or bad health, social resources are particularly interesting to study with respect to aging and old age ( Bosworth and Schaie 1997). It might be the case that increasing levels of stress and decreasing levels of individual resources can be compensated for by optimizing one's social resources. Accordingly, recent work on social resources in adulthood has mainly focused on their role in adapting to stress ( Bolger and Eckenrode 1991; Camacho et al. 1993; Harlow and Cantor 1995; Rosenbaum, Lewinsohn, and Gotlib 1996), their influence on longevity ( Lang and Carstensen 1994; Martin 1991; Olsen, Olsen, Gunner-Svensson, and Waldstrom 1991; Shahtahmasebi, Davies, and Wenger 1992), and their influence on well-being in very old age ( Neikrug, Shimshon, Ronen, Glanz, and Alon 1995; Reeves and Darville 1994).

Research on very old age has examined the contributions of social resources to outcomes such as well-being (e.g., Kahana and Kahana 1996; Simons and West 1985). It is well documented that very old age is associated with lower levels of income ( Berkman and Gurland 1998), lower levels of health ( Rundall 1992), and lower levels of available social resources ( Rook and Schuster 1996). However, much less is known about age differences in the relationship between social resources and well-being in middle and older adulthood, that is, in the age groups of persons in their 40s and persons in their 60s. Compared with very old age, both of these age groups can be characterized by higher levels of available resources and lower levels of environmental stress, hassles, or life events ( Chiriboga 1997). In addition, there seems to be rather little change in the amount of stress from age 40 to age 60. Although stress in some domains related to physical functioning such as health is likely to increase from age 40 to age 60 ( Aldwin, Sutton, Chiara, and Spiro 1996), stress in other domains such as finances and housing conditions might show differential changes, or even a decrease. By examining age differences in 40-year-olds and 60-year-olds with respect to predictors of well-being, it is possible to explore the effects of adaptational processes in response to changes in the levels of available resources and environmental demands in middle adulthood on an empirical basis. In addition, although some age differences in available resources, levels of stress, and levels of well-being can be expected between 40- and 60-year-olds, it remains unclear how social resources and stress are related to well-being in both age groups. Independent from potential mean differences between the two age groups, it is also not clear from existing data if there are age-related differences in the structural relations between resources, stress, and well-being.

	Conceptual Models

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Two influential approaches for understanding the interrelationships between the constructs of stress, resources, and well-being have been to conceptualize resources either as independently contributing to or as mediating the effects of stress on well-being ( Ensel and Lin 1991; Taylor and Aspinwall 1996). Applied to the cross-sectional measurement of stress, social resources, and well-being, this suggests four alternative conceptual models ( Ensel and Lin 1991). The first model is an independence model assuming that both stress and social resources contribute to well-being. It seems obvious that stress should be negatively related and social resources should be positively related to well-being. Essentially, the model assumes that on one hand current levels of stress significantly reduce well-being. On the other hand, the availability of social resources significantly increases well-being. The most important assumption of the model is that social resources do not necessarily reduce the amount of stress, and current levels of stress do not necessarily deplete the available social resources. The second model is a deterioration model assuming both direct and indirect effects of stress on well-being. This model assumes that on top of the contributions of stress and social resources on well-being, stress significantly reduces the available social resources. That is, resources mediate the effects of stress on well-being. If this is true, then because of the lower levels of resources, the effects of resources on well-being are likely to be smaller compared with the independence model. The third model, a stress-suppression model, is similar to the deterioration model. In contrast to the deterioration model, however, it specifies the additional negative path from resources to stress. In other words, it is assumed that resources reduce the likelihood of stress, that is, stress mediates the effects of available resources on well-being. Statistically, the stress-suppression model and the deterioration model cannot be easily distinguished in cross-sectional studies. However, the inspection of direct and indirect effects will permit the determination of which is the better-fitting model. A significant indirect effect of stress on well-being by means of the available resources would support the deterioration model. In contrast, a significant indirect effect of resources on well-being by means of the current level of stress would support the stress-suppression model. The fourth model, the counteractive model, differs from the deterioration model only in that it specifies a positive rather than a negative relationship between stress and resources. Thus, the model assumes that stress mobilizes resources instead of diminishing the available resources. In all four model approaches, developmental changes in the levels of resources and in the levels of stress might also lead to structural differences in the relationships between the variables. However, it should be noted that even if there are differences in the levels of stress, social resources, and well-being, the structural interrelationships of the constructs could very well remain stable across different age groups ( Ensel and Lin 1991).

	The Present Study

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Unlike most earlier studies, the present investigation focuses on age differences in the roles of stress and social resources for the achievement of well-being in middle and late adulthood, that is, in adults in their early 40s and adults in their early 60s. From a life-span perspective, middle adulthood has been an underresearched area. It is not clear from existing life-span data which factors determine the course of midlife development and how it is related to the transition into old age ( Lachman and James 1997). Compared with very old age, middle adulthood and the development from age 40 to age 60 are characterized by relatively small changes in the existence of stressors and the availability of coping resources ( Aldwin et al. 1996; Chiriboga 1997). To capture developmental differences across middle and late adulthood, however, a rather large age range must be considered. Therefore, the first goal of our study is to provide an estimate for cohort differences in social resources, levels of stress, and well-being between 40-year-olds and 60-year-olds.

Following the examination of age differences in available social resources, the second goal of our study will be to determine how the constructs of stress, social resources, and well-being are related and if age differences in levels of stress, resources, and well-being go along with structural changes in the relationships among these constructs. In both age groups, prominent stress factors across adulthood include health status, financial status, and housing conditions. All three are typically related to general life satisfaction (e.g., Lachman and Weaver 1998; Strawbridge, Shema, Balfour, Higby, and Kaplan 1998). When considering that low income and poor health are risk factors for a number of other problems, such as (prolonged) unemployment, low self-esteem, chronic morbidity, and higher mortality in later life (e.g., McQuaide 1998), it becomes obvious that these should be important predictors of well-being across adulthood. In particular, given the positive association between increasing age and higher levels of stress in the health domain, a strong relationship between stress and well-being should be expected in the 60-year-olds.

Although individuals reporting higher levels of stress in the financial or the health domains can be considered as living under more stressful life conditions, the availability of social resources might be a powerful positive contributor to well-being. In other words, an individual's environment may not only deprive a person of certain resources, it might also provide opportunities to capitalize on existing resources. Hence, the environment may also provide opportunities to compensate for the detrimental effects of low or unavailable resources in other domains. Overall, it seems clear from existing data that multiple variables contribute to well-being and that an understanding of its sources is likely to be incomplete if an exclusively stress-oriented or social-resource-oriented approach is taken ( Krause and Jay 1991). Structural-equation modeling permits the evaluation of the joint contributions of multiple agents to well-being. We used structural-equation modeling in the present research to assess the relative contributions of social resources and stress on well-being in different middle- and older-adult age groups, that is, 40-year-olds and 60-year-olds. Once the structural relationships are known, the weights of those relationships can be examined for differences that might indicate developmental changes in adaptational processes from middle toward late adulthood, that is, from the early 40s to the early 60s.

We should point out that interactions between certain types of stressors and the level and types of social support may exist in both age groups. Several studies have suggested that the activation of supportive social relationships depends at least in part on the type of a stressor at hand ( Hobfoll 1985). Some stressors (e.g., death of the spouse) may lead to greater social support, whereas other stressors (e.g., financial pressure) may reduce social support ( Krause 1997; Krause and Jay 1991). Therefore, the use of different indicators of a single stress construct might make the interpretations of structural relations between stress, resources, and well-being misleading; the structural relations might only exist for one but not other types of stressors. Hence, when examining structural relations one must make sure the interpretation will not change if one or the other stress indicator is used in the analysis.

In summary, the purpose of the present study was to examine age differences in the interrelationships between constructs of stress, social resources, and well-being in two groups of middle-aged and older adults, that is, 40-year-olds and 60-year-olds. In the first step, we examined age differences in the levels of the construct indicators. In the second step, we compared the fit of several structural equation models specifying either independent contributions of social resources and stress on well-being or a mediating role of resources. Finally, we compared the structural models with the best fit for both age groups to see if there were age differences in the structural relations among the constructs of stress, social resources, and well-being. The examination of age-related differences in the interrelationships among stress, social resources, and well-being will help to explain if (a) social resources exert an effect on well-being independent of the current levels of stress, (b) stress both reduces well-being and depletes the available social resources, preventing them from exerting a positive influence on well-being in the face of stress, (c) social resources reduce the likelihood of stress, or (d) stress helps to mobilize social resources. This will be of importance for future research on the effects of social resources on the adaptational efforts of adults across the life span.

	Methods

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Study Design
The data for this study were collected as part of the Interdisciplinary Longitudinal Study of Adult Development (ILSE). Data were collected in two data-collection centers in East and West Germany between late 1993 and early 1996. In this study on middle adult development, a wide range of data on demographics, health, functioning, and the individual cognitive representation of the environment was collected from two birth cohorts born 1930–32 and 1950–52 ( Rudinger and Minnemann 1997). Data presented here are taken from the social-support and medical portions of the data-collection effort.

Participants
Because of the language requirements for major parts of the assessment battery, the sample for this study was designed to be largely representative of the German-speaking citizens of German nationality in Germany. They represent 91% of the total population. The sample was stratified by age and gender. Addresses of 4,800 potential participants were obtained from the respective local registries (in Germany all citizens are officially registered in their communities). On the basis of this complete listing of citizens, addresses of potential participants were randomly drawn from this pool and the persons contacted. This procedure was followed until samples of 500 participants from East and West Germany were obtained. Participants were first contacted by mail, and an initial interview was conducted by phone. The total sample consists of 1,001 participants. Of these, 500 participants were born between 1930 and 1932, and 501 were born between 1950 and 1952. Half of the data from each cohort were collected in the former East Germany, and half in West Germany. In both cohorts, 52% of the participants were men. Because of the longitudinal design of the study, we purposely oversampled men and the sample has a somewhat higher level of educational attainment than the general population from Germany. Compared to the United States, there is little ethnic diversity in the German population, and certainly not in our sample. With the reliance on a random drawing from central registry addresses, and based on comparisons with the family status, income, and housing status of the same-aged group of the overall population in Germany, one can be confident that our sample is largely representative for the German-speaking population of Germany and comparable with other samples used in longitudinal research ( Rudinger and Minnemann 1997). On account of missing data for some of the variables (e.g., participants not reporting their income) used in the present analyses, 49 of the older and 12 of the younger participants had to be excluded from the analyses. The following analyses, therefore, refer to a total sample of 938 participants. More detailed information on the samples are provided in Table 1 . Although there are age differences in the level of educational attainment and economic status, structural models will be run separately for the two age groups. Therefore, the results should not be affected by these differences.

Social resources.
In the social-support section, the interview covered activities in eight social roles: partnership, parent, grandparent, child, relative, friends, acquaintance, and neighbor. For each role, participants were interviewed about the geographical distance of the interaction partners, the frequency of contacts, the reciprocity of the contacts, and the kind of joint activities. After interviewing the participants about social activities, their satisfaction with the activities in each role was scored by the interviewers on a 5-point scale ranging from 1 (completely unsatisfied) to 5 (completely satisfied). An average score across activities representing satisfaction with social activity across all eight roles was calculated. The score could range from 1 to 5. The participants were also asked to rate the perceived quality of their social contacts on a similar 5-point scale.

Stress.
Stress was measured in the three domains of health, finances, and housing conditions. When measuring stress, most researchers use the number of critical life events in the recent past (for a review, see Miller 1996). However, the number of life events can be misleading, in particular when some events are not experienced as stressful by the individual. Although it was more time consuming, we used measures of stress in important life domains that included the subjectively experienced level of stress in the domains of health, finances, and housing conditions. For each domain, participants were interviewed in detail on their current status. In the health section, participants were asked about health problems, pains, sleeping problems, health behaviors, physician's visits, and hospital stays. In the finances section, participants were asked about their current income, assets, retirement benefits, financial problems, debts, money management, long-term financial plans, and financial support of family members. In the section on housing conditions, participants were asked about the size of their apartment or house, ownership of the apartment, moves in the last year, assessment of adequacy of home environment, other people living in the household, neighborhood crime rate, and pollution. Interviewers then rated the amount of stress in each domain on a 5-point scale ranging from 1 (very low) to 5 (very high).

Subjective well-being.
Well-being was measured with the revised standardized Philadelphia Geriatric Center Morale Scale (PGC; Lawton 1975). The items measure morale in three subscales: Agitation, Attitude Toward Own Aging, and Lonely Dissatisfaction. The Cronbach's alphas for the subscales were .70, .65, and .70, respectively. Agitation is measured by six items such as, "I sometimes worry so much that I can't sleep." Attitude Toward Own Aging is measured by five items such as, "Things keep getting worse as I get older." Lonely Dissatisfaction is measured with six items such as, "I see enough of my friends and relatives." The items are scored so that a higher value indicates a higher level of morale.

Procedure
On Day 1, the participants were given a brief overview of the study. After this, the order of presentation that the measurement instruments followed was counterbalanced. Half of the sample was first interviewed in one-on-one settings in two data collection centers in Heidelberg and Leipzig, Germany. The interview lasted an average of 5 hr, and measures for the present analyses taken from the interview took an average of 45 min to complete. After the interview, the participants went through a battery of tests from different disciplines participating in the study. The other half of the sample received the test battery before the interview. Participants returned for a second day within a week of their initial visit. Upon return, the participants went through the detailed medical examination and an additional set of questionnaires.

	Results

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Age Differences
The first step of the analysis was to examine age differences in the indicator variables for stress, social resources, and well-being. The results are displayed in Table 2 . One-way analyses of variance were conducted to compare the two age groups. As can be seen in Table 2 , none of the social resource measures yielded a significant age difference: F(1,936) = 1.69, p < .05, ² = .00 for satisfaction with role activities; F(1,862) = 0.09, p > .05, ² = .00 for perceived quality of contacts. Stress measures showed differential age effects. There are age differences for the health domain, F(1,936) = 11.58, p < .01, ² = .01, the financial domain, F(1,936) = 7.45, p < .01, ² = .01, and the environmental domain, F(1,936) = 11.86, p < .01, ² = .01. It must be noted that age differences advantaged the younger participants in the health domain and the older participants in the financial and environmental domains. The measures of well-being revealed the expected age difference for the PGC subscales. We obtained significant age differences for the Agitation scale, F(1,936) = 20.73, p < .05, ² = .02, and the Attitude Toward Own Aging scale, F(1,936) = 4.05, p < .05, ² = .00, with age differences indicating higher levels of well-being in the younger age group. The Lonely Dissatisfaction subscale showed no significant age differences, F(1,936) = 0.94, p > .05, ² = .00.

In constructing the first set of independent models, we conceptualized stress and social resources to have only direct effects on well-being and to contribute independently to well-being. The model we developed for the two age groups had a reasonable fit, ²(18, N = 489) = 110.96, p < .05, Goodness of Fit Index (GFI) = .95, Adjusted Goodness of Fit Index (AGFI) = .89, standardized root-mean-square residual (SRMR) = .10, for the younger group, and ²(18, N = 449) = 100.71, p < .05, GFI = .95, AGFI = .89, SRMR = .10, for the older group. In constructing the second set of models, we conceptualized stress and social resources to contribute both directly and indirectly to well-being. The deterioration models assume that stress and social resources contribute directly to well-being, but stress also diminishes the available social resources. In contrast, the stress-suppression models assume that available resources reduce the amount of stress. Both models are statistically indistinguishable. The models we developed for the two age groups explained 47% of the variance in well-being in the younger age group and 39% in the older group. In both age groups, the models had an acceptable fit, ²(17, N = 489) = 65.10, p < .05, GFI = .97, AGFI = .93, SRMR = .05, for the younger group, and ²(17, N = 449) = 62.50, p < .05, GFI = .97, AGFI = .93, SRMR = .05, for the older group. Compared with the independence models, the deterioration and stress-suppression models for both groups had a significantly lower chi-square value, a better fit, and a lower error estimate. Table 4 , in displaying the fit indices for the models, therefore includes the stress-suppression and the deterioration models.

In a next step, we examined total and indirect effects of resources and stress on well-being for both the deterioration and the stress-suppression model. As discussed earlier, a significant indirect effect of stress on well-being by means of social resources would support the deterioration model. In contrast, a significant indirect effect of resources on well-being by means of stress would support the stress-suppression model. The total and indirect effects for both models and both age groups are displayed in Table 5 . As can be inferred from the significant indirect effect of resources on well-being, the data provide support for the stress-suppression model.

View larger version (16K): [in this window] [in a new window]   Figure 1. Stress-suppression model for middle-aged group. Satisf. = satisfaction; PGC = Philadelphia Geriatric Center Morale Scale; Tow. = Toward.

View larger version (16K): [in this window] [in a new window]   Figure 2. Stress-suppression model for older age group. Satisf. = satisfaction; PGC = Philadelphia Geriatric Center Morale Scale; Tow. = Toward.

	Discussion

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In addition to differences in available social resources, we examined the level of stress in three important domains: health, finances, and housing conditions. In all three domains we found significant age differences. However, whereas the difference was in favor of the younger group in the health domain, the differences in the finances and housing conditions domains were in favor of the older group. In other words, in one of the most prominent domains across old age, that is, the health domain, levels of stress seem to be higher in older compared with middle age. This is important for three reasons. First, it indicates that with respect to physical changes that have been related to well-being in old age, the related levels of stress seem to increase already from middle to older age. Second, with respect to the health domain, age might punish older adults twice: They have to cope with higher levels of stress while having fewer resources to cope with them. Third, in domains that are not closely related to physical changes but rather to environmental changes, age differences in levels of stress from middle to older age might depend more strongly on factors that were not part of the present study, for example, job-, partner-, or family-related influences. Future research examining levels of stress in different domains over multiple measurement points could help to clarify differential developmental trajectories with respect to resources and stress from middle to old age.

Second, structural-equation modeling could demonstrate that the interrelationships among the constructs of social resources, stress, and well-being for both age groups are best explained by either the deterioration or the stress-suppression model. An independence model with an independent positive contribution of social resources and a negative contribution of stress on well-being exhibited a significantly worse fit and could not be supported. The counteractive model assuming a mobilizing of resources as a reaction to stress and specifying a positive relationship between stress and social resources, was disconfirmed by the strong negative relationship between stress and social resources. Therefore, results indicate that both social resources and stress are related to well-being, and that stress exerts a strong negative influence on well-being. In addition, the fit of the two models, that is, the deterioration and the stress-suppression models, suggests that there is a strong negative relationship between stress and social resources. Examination of total and indirect effects supports the view of the stress-suppression model, that is, that stress mediates the influence of social resources on well-being in middle and older age.

Third, from a developmental perspective the results clearly suggest stable structural relations from middle to old age. In both groups, the same models had the best fit, and the direction of the model paths were identical. It can be concluded that the differences in levels of stress and social resources from middle to old age do not seem to lead to differences in the interrelationships among stress, resources, and well-being. In addition, the results do not seem to be due to interactions between the stress measures used in this study and the social-resource indicators. When we computed the analyses separately for the three stress indicators, the same structural relations between the constructs emerged.

We examined age differences between middle-aged and older adults with respect to the interrelationships among constructs of stress, social resources, and well-being. We managed to establish a high degree of comparability between the models that fit the data from the two age groups in the study. For both age groups, a deterioration model and a stress-suppression model, assuming a negative path from stress to well-being, a path from social resources to well-being, and a negative relationship between stress and social resources, were supported. However, on the basis of examining total and indirect effects of both models, the stress-suppression model assuming stress to mediate the influence of social resources on well-being seems to be the most adequate to describe the structural relations between stress, social resources, and well-being in middle-aged and older adults in their 60s. An alternative model assuming independent contributions of stress and social resources on well-being had a significantly worse fit. Another model assuming a positive relationship from stress to resources was invalidated on empirical grounds: Stress and social resources are negatively related.

Although we feel our results are an important contribution to the study of social resources, stress, and well-being in middle-aged and older adults, we must admit several limitations of our approach. Because we have been working with cross-sectional data, it could not be determined which of the best-fitting models is the most adequate to explain age differences in the interrelationships among the constructs based on the fit indices of the structural equation models. Still, the mediating role of stress could be inferred on the basis of the indirect effect of resources on well-being. In addition, the nonsignificant path from resources to well-being, once a path between stress and resources is added, might be misleading. This finding does not imply that social resources cannot contribute to well-being. Rather, we argue that given high levels of stress, social resources do not seem to be able to counteract the negative effects of stress on well-being. This might depend on the kinds of resources examined. If other types of resources like cognition, personality, attitudes, or control beliefs were included in the model, the variance in well-being explained by the availability of resources might increase substantially. Overall, it might be the case that with the use of more indicators of different resources or when extreme groups of stress are compared, this path might become significant. The decision between the latter hypothesis and the alternative, that is, that even with high levels of stress and/or other indicators resources affect well-being only indirectly by reducing the level of stress, still awaits empirical testing. However, this does not alter or diminish the implications of our findings. Future research applying a longitudinal design and using additional indicators of different types of resources will help to further clarify the structural relationships among stress, social resources, and well-being, and its developmental changes.

	Acknowledgments

 
Part of the preparation of this article was supported by the German Federal Ministry of Family, Senior Citizens, Women and Youth (BMFSFJ) and the Baden-Württemberg Ministry of Science, Research and Art (MWK) Grant Ref. 314-1722-102/16.

Received for publication August 12, 1999. Accepted for publication July 27, 2000.

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