A growing literature examines anticipatory stressors or the worries people have about the future that may or may never occur. Drawing on data collected as part of two national surveys (N = 3,834), this study formalizes a scale of anticipatory stress tapping into future-oriented worries about economic security, traumatic events, and discrimination. Results indicate that both personal and vicarious stress exposure predict greater anticipatory stress and, replicating past work, that such worries are concentrated among historically marginalized groups. Anticipatory stressors explain an appreciable amount of the variation in distress, and suggestive of their insidious effects, these associations persist after adjustment for other sources of adversity. Whereas mastery and self-esteem buffer mental health, the protective effects of social support are compromised at higher levels of anticipatory stress. Findings signal the importance of incorporating anticipatory stressors into the stress process to more sufficiently capture how the social world imprints on mental health.

中文翻译：

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走进未知：压力过程范式中的预期压力源


越来越多的文献研究了预期压力源或人们对未来可能发生或可能永远不会发生的担忧。利用作为两项全国调查 （N = 3,834） 的一部分收集的数据，本研究正式确定了预期压力的量表，该量表利用了对经济安全、创伤事件和歧视的未来担忧。结果表明，个人和替代性压力暴露都预示着更大的预期压力，并且与过去的工作一样，这种担忧集中在历史上被边缘化的群体中。预期压力源解释了痛苦的大量变化，并暗示了它们的隐蔽影响，这些关联在调整了其他逆境来源后仍然存在。虽然掌握和自尊可以缓冲心理健康，但社会支持的保护作用会在更高水平的预期压力下受到损害。研究结果表明，将预期压力源纳入压力过程以更充分地捕捉社会世界对心理健康的影响非常重要。