Daily interpersonal tensions as predictors of threats to communion and agency, coping, and perceived coping efficacy: role of adverse childhood experiences.

Abstract

Background: Daily interpersonal tensions, common sources of stress, have well-established links to adverse psychological and physiological health outcomes. This study examined whether daily interpersonal tensions differ from other stressors in their relations to threat appraisals and coping, and how adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) contribute to this process.

Methods: Community-dwelling adults (N = 233, aged 25-87 years) reported ACEs and completed four mobile surveys per day for 14 days about stressors, threat appraisals for communion and agency, coping, and perceived coping efficacy.

Results: Multilevel models found greater communal, but not agentic, threat appraisals on days with interpersonal tensions (vs. days with other stressors). On such days, there was less support seeking, more avoidance, and lower perceived coping efficacy, but no differences in problem solving or reappraisal. The within-person relationship between interpersonal tensions and avoidance (but not other coping approaches) was more pronounced in individuals with more ACEs.

Conclusion: Compared to other daily stressors, interpersonal tensions were associated with greater communal threat appraisals, and engagement in less effective coping responses. People with more ACEs tended to disengage more from interpersonal tensions than from other stressors.