Differential Impacts of Stressors on Sense of Belonging

A number of personal and familial stressors are supposedly stressful. However, their individual impacts on the person's sense of belonging remain largely uncharted. The study thereby examines the impacts of the stressors in general and in relation to personal and familial background characteristics. Such examination adheres to the perspective of resource theory, which envisions that resources are salutary and relieving the stress of stressors by compensating for resource loss. A survey of 1,200 residents in Taiwan provided data for the examination. Results revealed that work-to-family conflict and family disbanding were two stressors weakening sense of belonging. Furthermore, the former stressor was more stressful to people of higher social class, whereas the latter stressor was more stressful to people with higher family income but lower education. The results imply certain ways to employ resources properly to tackle the stress of stressors. © 2012 Springer Science+Business Media B.V.