The accumulation of problems of social functioning : outer, inner, and behavioral strands

Abstract

This study examined the question of whether problems of social functioning in adulthood accumulate, and compared developmental processes involved in the accumulation of problems in men and women. Problems of social functioning in adulthood included, for example, poor financial standing, poor social relationships, and drinking problems. Risk factors in childhood and adolescence consisted of aggressiveness and anxiety, family problems, and negative schooling experiences. The study was based on the Jyvaskyla Longitudinal Study of Personality and Social Development, in which the lives of the participants have been followed from age 8 to age 36. The original sample consisted of 196 boys and 173 girls born in 1959. Data collected at ages 8, 14, 27, and 36 by using teacher ratings, questionnaires, interviews and criminal records were utilized. The results indicated that problems of social functioning tend to interact and co-occur. The accumulation of problems was more common among the men than among the women, and there were sex differences in the strands through which accumulated risk factors were transmuted into adult problems. The "outer strand", referring to lack of opportunities in life included career instability in both sexes; but early parenthood and a problematic partner only in women. "Behavioral strand", denoting the individual's tendency to exhibit problem behavior, and its negative consequences, was more prominent in the accumulation of problems in men than in women, whereas the "inner strand" in terms of sense of failure was more central in the case of women. Continuity in the accumulation of problems was weaker among women, and women's problems started to accumulate later in life than men's problems. As a conceptual conclusion, a distinction was drawn on the basis of the focus of interest (individual or population) and temporal perspective (state or process) between accumulation as a co-occurrence of problems, and accumulation as a chain of problems in individuals; and accumulation as a concentration of problems in a subgroup of people and accumulation as polarization of problems in a population. "Accumulation" in the present study refers to a long-term process on the individual level.