Stressful Life Events, Differential Vulnerability, and Depressive Symptoms: Critique and New Evidence.

ABSTRACT: Depressive symptoms are disproportionately high among women and less educated individuals. One mechanism proposed to explain this is the differential vulnerability hypothesis-that these groups experience particularly strong increases in symptoms in response to stressful life events. We identify limitations to prior work and present evidence from a new approach to life stress research using the UK Household Longitudinal Study. Preliminarily, we replicate prior findings of differential vulnerability in between-individual models. Harnessing repeated measures, however, we show that apparent findings of differential vulnerability by both sex and education are artifacts of confounding. Men and women experience similar average increases in depressive symptoms after stressful life events. One exce

SUBMITTER: Anderson LR 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9136473 | biostudies-literature | 2022 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature