Associations Between Financial Stress and Interpersonal Events: A Daily Diary Study of Middle-Aged Adults and Their Life Circumstances

This study examined the relationships between daily negative financial events and positive and negative interpersonal events, as well as the moderating effects of life circumstances, for a sample of 182 adults between the age of 40 and 65 providing 30 days of diary data collected between 2008 and 2011. There was a significant and positive relationship between daily negative interpersonal events and daily levels of both negative interpersonal events and positive interpersonal events; these relationships varied by income, employment status, parenting roles, and the experience of major financial challenges over the previous year. The moderating effect of income was nonlinear but its effect disappeared when the interaction between major financial challenges over the previous year and daily negative financial events was entered into the model. The results were interpreted in the context of the stress proliferation and resource mobilization theoretical models and directions for future studies were delineated with respect to individual- and community-level factors that influence the role of financial events on the daily social worlds of middle-aged adults.