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Successful Aging

Year: 2018
Type: conference-abstract
Abstract: Studies have revealed that children’s perceptions of maternal differential treatment (MDT) in adulthood, particularly perceptions of favoritism and disfavoritism, have a negative impact on psychological well-being; however, these studies have not considered the mechanisms underlying these processes. In particular, these studies have ignored the possibility that MDT may affect adult children’s well-being in part by disrupting other important family relationships, such as marital and sibling ties. Stress proliferation suggests that “primary” stressors, those to which people are initially exposed, can produce “secondary” stressors, in a process called “stress proliferation.” This study uses stress proliferation theory and the theme of linked lives to argue that MDT, as a primary stressor in mother-child relationships, can produce secondary stressors in other family relationships (e.g., sibling tension and marital tension), which in turn lead to lower psychological well-being. To investigate this mechanism, we conducted multilevel mediation analysis using data collected from 506 married adult children nested within 309 families, as part of the Within-Family Differences Study-II. We found that sibling tension mediated 15.6% of the association between MDT and depressive symptoms, whereas marital tension did not mediate this association. These findings suggest that perceptions of MDT not only have direct effects on adult children’s psychological well-being, but that such perceptions have indirect effects through tension with siblings. Thus, these findings contribute to a growing literature demonstrating the complex ways in which family members’ linked lives affect well-being.
DOI: 10.1093/geroni/igy023.178
Language: English
Subfield: Demography
Open Access status: gold
Estimated APC paid: $3,977
OpenAlex ID: W4256054580
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