A psycholinguistic study of the adult life span: Is there a relationship between writing and stress across the life stages?

Date

8/30/1986

Authors

Milner, Loreta S.

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Abstract

This study was associational rather than experimental and was designed to explore the proposition that persons' life event responses or their perceptions of those events can affect linguistic choices. The primary purpose of the study was to ascertain if a relationship existed between persons' stress levels and their writing. The second major purpose was to determine, should a relationship exist between persons' psychological stress and their writing, whether sex, adult development stages as indicated by age categories or adult development stages as reflected in marker events included in the life events scale, as measured by the Variation of Social Readjustment Rating Scale (VSRRS) (Holmes & Rahe, 1967 and Cross, 1982), affected the relationship between linguistic measures and stress.

In this research, six sets of null hypotheses were tested. The Pearson product moment correlation was computed to test the null hypothesis of a zero correlation between life event scale scores and the linguistic measures. The Pearson product moment correlation was also used to test the null hypothesis of a zero correlation between adult life stage (age category) as reflected in marker events and linguistics. Multiple linear regression was used to determine the degrees of relationship between the seven linguistic measures collectively with life event scale scores to test the null hypothesis of a zero multiple correlation between life event scale scores and linguistic measures. One-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) was computed on each of the seven linguistic measures to test the null hypothesis of no significant difference in the mean response by age categories (life stage) and sex for each linguistic measure sampled. Two-way analysis of variance (ANOVA), using age categories and stress categories as factors, was conducted on linguistic measures to test the null hypothesis of no-effect of adult life stage (age category) on the relationship between life event and linguistics.

The results of this investigation seem to confirm that there is a relationship between stress and persons' writings, and also that adult development stages as indicated by age categories and adult development stages as reflected in marker events affect the relationship between linguistic measures and stress.

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Keywords

Adult development stages, Marker events, Adult life stage, Education

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