Financial stress and interpersonal events in middle-aged adults

Social Issues During Adulthood With Disabilities

Sturgeon, Zautra & Okun (2014) conducted a study to examine the link between financial stress and interpersonal events among middle-aged adults and their conditions in life. This research was carried out on the premise that financial resources are crucial towards stability in an individual\'s home, provision of basic needs like food and healthcare, and access to various life opportunities. Given the role of financial resources during life span development, the lack of enough finances could have adverse effects on an individual\'s development. These researchers contend that the lack of financial resources could have tangible negative effects like scarcity of basic necessities and psychological effects like stress. In this study, Sturgeon, Zautra & Okun (2014) acknowledged that the psychological consequences of financial hardships have received relatively less attention from researchers.

While the study does not have a specific section where the purpose of the research is indicated, the researchers clearly explain the goals of their study. The researchers sought to accomplish three major objectives in the study including examining the applicability of stress proliferation model in daily financial levels. Secondly, the study sought to explore whether support mobilization model could be applied to financial stress experiences. In this case, they examined whether an increase in negative financial incidents is accompanied with increase in positive interpersonal events (Sturgeon, Zautra & Okun, 2014). Thirdly, the research sought to evaluate how normative and non-normative life situations could alter the link between financial stressors and interpersonal operation during midlife.

Even though the researchers identified a suitable representative sample to participate in the study, the findings of the research could be enhanced through a suitable sampling approach. While the random sampling approach helped in ensuring that every individual in the target population has equal chances of participating in the study, it could have resulted in inclusion of participants who could not provide information-rich data. The nature of the study required ensuring that the selected participants from the target population had experiences of financial stress during midlife. Therefore, using a random sampling approach essentially gave opportunities for those who have not experienced financial stress to participate in the study. This study could have benefit from a mixed sampling method such as a combination of random sampling and purposeful sampling. The use of such sampling methods would have helped in ensuring that the selected participants provide information-rich data that help in generating accurate findings that can be generalized.