Social class and depressive symptomatology. The role of life change events and locus of control.

This paper considers the hypothesis that the relationship between social class and impairment may be accounted for by the greater prevalence of life events among lower-class individuals. This hypothesis was evaluated on data from 713 rural Tennessee adults. The data indicated that, although social class indices were inversely related to psychiatric impairment as expected there was no significant tendency for lower-class individuals to report a greater number of life events. For total number of events, as well as total number report a greater number of life events. For total number of events, as well as total number of undesirable, unexpected, or unpreventable events, middle- and upper-class individuals tended to report more events. Controls for the event indices did not affect the relationship between social class and symptomatology as the stress hypothesis would predict. However, locus of control was positively related to social class and was found to influence the event-impairment relationship. These data raise questions regarding the etiological role of life events in the relationship between social class and psychiatric impairments. The data suggest that observed social class differences in impairment may arise from the coping styles of certain social classes (as measured by locus of control) rather than from the differential prevalence of life events.