that is often used by family stress researchers and clinicians is normal or predictable events versus nonnormative or unpredictable events. Normal events are part of everyday life and represent transitions inherent in the family life cycle, such as birth or death of a family member, child’s school entry, and retirement. These normative stressor events by definition are of short duration. Although predictable, such life-cycle events have the potential of changing a family’s level of stress because they disturb the system equilibrium (Anderson et al., 2013; Henry et al., 2015). These events lead to crisis only if the family does not adapt to the changes brought about by these events (Carter & McGoldrick, 1989).
Nonnormative events are the product of unique situations that could not be predicted and are not likely to be repeated. Examples of nonnormative events would include natural disasters, loss of a job, or an automobile accident. Unexpected but welcome events that are not disastrous may also be stressful for families, such as a promotion or winning the lottery. Although these events are positive, they do change or disturb the family’s routine and thus have the potential of raising the family’s level of stress (Boss, 1988; Lavee, 2013).
There has been much interest in the study of isolated versus accumulated stressors. Specifically, life event scholars (e.g., Holmes & Rahe, 1967; McCubbin & McCubbin, 2013; McCubbin et al., 1981) suggest that it is the accumulation of several stressor events rather than the nature of one isolated event that determines a family’s level of stress. The clustering of stressor events (normative and/or nonnormative) is termed stress pileup. An event rarely happens to a family in total isolation. Normal developmental changes are always taking place and nonnormative events tend to result in other stressors; for example, loss of job may result in a family having to move or marital disruption. By focusing only on certain events or stressors, researchers may fail to capture the complexity in the range and clustering of stressors (Pearlin, 1991; Yeh, Arora, & Wu, 2006).
Table 1.1
Source: Adapted from Lipman-Blumen, J. (1975). A crisis framework applied to macrosociological family changes: Marriage, divorce, and occupational trends associated with World War II. Journal of Marriage and the Family, 27, 889–902.
Researchers have also offered alternative perspectives on stressor events. One such alternative is focusing on daily stressors and their relationship to stress outcomes (e.g., Darling et al., 2012; Harris, Marett, & Harris, 2011; Serido, Almeida, & Wethington, 2004; For review, see Helms, Postler, & Demo, Chapter 2 in this volume). Daily hassles not only parallel major life events in their potential to engender stress, but have an even stronger relationship than traditional life events measures in affecting relationship satisfaction, subjective well-being, and predicting physical health (Falconier et al., 2014; Graf et al., 2016).
Not all stressor events, however, are straightforward or easily understood. As a result, a state of ambiguity is created. Boss (1999, 2006, 2013; Boss, Bryant, & Mancini, 2017) addressed the issue of ambiguous loss that can result from incongruency between physical and psychological/emotional presence or absence. There are two major types of ambiguous loss: (1) a person being physically absent but psychologically or emotionally present (missing children, divorce, a family member in prison, soldiers missing in action, immigrants); and, (2) when a person is physically present but psychologically or emotionally absent (a person that has Alzheimer’s disease or a chronic mental illness, chronic substance abuse; a spouse preoccupied with work; Boss, 1999, 2013). Ambiguous loss not only disrupts family functioning, it results in a lack of clarity regarding who is “in” and who is “outside” the family, as well as what are appropriate roles for family members. This type of ambiguity is the most stressful situation a person or family can experience. Boss attributed this high level of stress to (a) people feeling unable to problem solve because they do not know whether the problem is final or temporary, (b) the ambiguity preventing people from adjusting by reorganizing their relationship with the loved one, (c) families denying societal rituals associated with loss (e.g., funerals, death certificate) that in turn impede their ability to grieve, (d) friends or neighbors withdrawing rather than giving support, and (e) the extended continuation of ambiguous loss which leads to the physical and emotional exhaustion of affected family members (Boss, 1999, pp. 7–8).
Resources
The family’s resources buffer or moderate the impact of the stressor event on the family’s level of stress. Hansen (1965) uses the term vulnerability to denote the difference in families’ physical and emotional responses to stressful stimuli (Gore & Colten, 1991). This moderator denotes variation in a family’s ability to prevent a stressor event or change from creating disruptiveness in the system (Burr, 1973; Henry et al., 2015). When family members have sufficient and appropriate resources, they are less likely to view a stressful situation as problematic. McCubbin and Patterson (1985) defined resources as traits, characteristics, or abilities of (a) individual family members, (b) the family system, and (c) the community that can be used to meet the demands of a stressor event. Individual or personal resources include financial (economic well-being), educational (problem solving, information), health (physical and emotional well-being), and psychological resources which include self-esteem, optimism, sense of coherence, sense of mastery, and a positive family schema or ethnic identity (Everson, Darling, Herzog, Figley, & King, 2017; Garrard, Fennell, & Wilson, 2017; Lavee, 2013; McCubbin & McCubbin, 2013).
The term family system resources refers to internal attributes of the family unit that protect the family from the impact of stressors and facilitate family adaptation during family stress or crisis. Family cohesion (bonds of unity) and adaptability (ability to change) (Olson, Russell, & Sprenkle, 1979, 1983; Patterson, 2002) have received the most research attention (Lavee, 2013). These two dimensions are the major axes of the circumplex model (Olson et al., 1979). This model suggests that families who function moderately along the dimensions of cohesion and adaptability are likely to make a more successful adjustment to stress (Olson, Russell, & Sprenkle, 1980).
Community resources refer to those capabilities of people or institutions outside the family upon which the family can draw from to deal with stress (Boss, Bryant, & Mancini, 2017). Social support is one of the most important community resources, such as informal support from friends, neighbors and colleagues, as well as formal support from community institutions (Lavee, 2013). Social support may be viewed as informational in terms of facilitating problem solving and as tangible in the development of social contacts who provide help and assistance. In general, social support serves as a protector against the effects of stressors and promotes recovery from stress or crisis. Increasingly, the concept of community resources has been broadened to include the resources of cultural groups, for example, ethnic minority families (Emmen et al., 2013; Hill, 1999; McCubbin, Futrell, Thompson & Thompson, 1998; McCubbin, & McCubbin, 2013; Yeh et al., 2006) as well as those offered within established neighborhoods and communities (Distelberg & Taylor, 2015; Lum et al., 2016).
Definition of the Event/Perceptions
The impact of the stressor event on the family’s level of stress is moderated by the definition or meaning the family gives to the event. This variable is also synonymous with family appraisal, perception, and assessment of the event. Thus, subjective definitions can vary from viewing circumstances as a challenge and an opportunity for growth, to the negative view that things are hopeless, too difficult, or unmanageable (Lavee, 2013; McCubbin & Patterson, 1985). Empirical findings suggest that an individual’s cognitive appraisal of life events strongly influences the response (Lazarus & Launier, 1978), and may be the most important component in determining an individual’s or family’s response to a stressor event (Boss, 2002; Hennon et al., 2009).
This concept has a long tradition in social psychology in terms of the self-fulfilling prophecy that, if something is perceived as real, it is real
