Peer relations as a source of stress? Assessing affiliation- and status-related stress among adolescents

摘要

In this study, we applied a general stress scale (Perceived Stress Scale; Cohen et al., 198311. Cohen , S. , Kamarck , T. and Mermelstein , R. 1983 . A global measure of perceived stress . Journal of Health and Social Behavior , 24 : 385 - 396 . [CrossRef], [PubMed], [Web of Science ®], [CSA]View all references) in the peer context, resulting in a new Peer-Relational Stress Scale (PRS), which assesses both affiliation-related and status-related stress. The self-rating questionnaire was filled out by 345 Norwegian adolescents, who also reported their experiences of victimization and peer support. We investigated the construct validity of the PRS by using confirmatory factor analysis (CFA), and tested its measurement invariance across two randomly selected subsamples as well as across gender. It was shown that affiliation-related and status-related stress are two distinct, although correlated, dimensions of stress in the peer context. Criterion validity of affiliation- and peer-related stress was tested by correlating the two stress dimensions with victimization and peer support. As hypothesized, victimization was positively and peer support negatively associated with individual differences in experienced stress.