ReviewThe American psychologist
Charting adult development through (historically changing) daily stress processes.
Review in The American psychologist. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 57 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
57 citing papers in PubMed, 91 citations in OpenAlex.
- Oxytocin as regulator of stress and inflammation in aging.Neuroscience and biobehavioral reviews · 2026Review
- Beyond Resilience: A Mixed-Method, Longitudinal Analysis of Difficulties and Positive Experiences in Older Adults During the COVID-19 Pandemic.Behavioral sciences (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Article
- Coupled Changes in Daily Control Beliefs and Cognition: Variations by Education and Income.International journal of behavioral development · 2026Article
- Associations Between Perceived Stress and Sperm DNA Methylation Among Men Attending a Fertility Center.Andrology · 2026Article
- Pain during midlife: a cross-national analysis of cohort differences in reports of pain in the United States, Europe, South Korea, and Mexico.American journal of epidemiology · 2026Article
- Historical change in midlife trajectories of self-reported sensory functioning across 16 nations.The Gerontologist · 2026Article
- Historical Change in Midlife Development from a Cross-National Perspective.Current directions in psychological science · 2026Article
- Uncovering mechanisms of historical change in midlife loneliness across the United States and Europe: a focus on physical activity, health conditions, and wealth.The journals of gerontology. Series B, Psychological sciences and social sciences · 2026Article
- Emotional Reactivity to Daily Physical Symptoms in Adulthood and Old Age: The Role of Different Facets of Social Support.Gerontology · 2026Article
- Perceived stress and coping among adults in Germany: results from the 'Health in Germany' panel 2024.Journal of health monitoring · 2026Article
- Daily health and well-being among caregivers with multiple adverse childhood experiences: The role of family support and strain.Advances in life course research · 2025Article
- The National Study of Daily Experiences: Protocol for Assessments of Daily Stress, Well-Being, Health, and Salivary Biomarkers in a Longitudinal Cohort.JMIR research protocols · 2025Article
- Partner strain and support associations with affective reactions to daily stressors.Family relations · 2025Article
- Midlife blues: A lifespan perspective on midlife depressive symptoms.Psychology and aging · 2025Article
- A Perspective on Making "Invisible" Care Visible Through Time Use Data.Journal of aging & social policy · 2025Article
- Daily Stress and Cortisol Patterns in Midlife and Older Parents of Children With Developmental Disabilities.The journals of gerontology. Series B, Psychological sciences and social sciences · 2025Article
- Educational disparities in 20-year trajectories of psychological well-being in a national sample.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Longitudinal changes in coping strategies across midlife and older adulthood: findings from the midlife in the United States study.Aging & mental health · 2025Observational
- Trajectories of episodic memory in midlife: Historical change from a cross-country perspective.Psychology and aging · 2025Article
- Psychological Stress and Cognitive Brain Health: Policies to Reduce Dementia Risk.Policy insights from the behavioral and brain sciences · 2025Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
7 authors at 6 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
Abstract
This article views adult development through the lens of daily life experiences and recent historical changes in these experiences. In particular, it examines whether theories that postulate general linear increases in well-being throughout adulthood still hold during times of less prosperity and more uncertainty. Descriptive analyses of the National Study of Daily Experiences chart show how stress in the daily lives of Americans may have changed from the 1990s (N = 1,499) to the 2010s (N = 782). Results revealed that adults in the 2010s reported experiencing stressors on 2% more days than in the 1990s, which translates to an additional week of stressors across a year. Participants in the 2010s also reported that stressors were more severe and posed more risks to future plans and finances and that they experienced more distress. These historical changes were particularly pronounced among middle-aged adults (e.g., proportion of stressor days increased by 19%, and perceived risks to finances and to future plans rose by 61% and 52%, respectively). As a consequence, age-related linear increases in well-being observed from young adulthood to midlife in the 1990s were no longer observed in the 2010s. If further studies continue to replicate our findings, traditional theories of adult well-being that were developed and empirically tested during times of relative economic prosperity may need to be reevaluated in light of the changes in middle adulthood currently observed in this historic period. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.