Bereavement: how strength saps coping.

A harmonious marriage, a solid bank account and a sense of control over life offer many rewards. But such sought-after assets also set the stage for a particularly difficult adjustment to the death of a spouse, according to preliminary data from the first large-scale study of adults both before and after bereavement.

"People with considerable [psychological and financial] resources may be at most risk for negative reactions to the loss of a loved one," says psychology graduate studnt Vicki Gluhoski of the State University of New York at Stony Brook. "If someone view the of predictable and safe, bereavement may hit them especially hard."

Gluhoski, who conducted the study with Stony Brook psychologist Camille B. Worthamn and sociologist Ronald Kessler of the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, presented the findings at the annual meeting of the American Psychological Society in Washington, D.C., last week.

Their findings suggest that people involved in conflict-riddent marriages suffer less emotional distress following a spouse's death than those in stable marriages. This contradicts the traditional assumption, based on clinical observations, that the survivor of a tumultuous relationship faces major difficulties in resolving the loss of his or her partner, Wortman points out.

The data also undermine the widespread notion that people armed with a sense of self-worth, confidence in their ability to overcome obstacles through hard work, and other emotional resources fend best in the face of severe stress, such as bereavement.

"So far, the findings fly in the face of most theories about grief," Wortman asserts. "A Protestant work ethic type of world view can be very adaptive in many settings, but apparently not after the sudden loss of a loved one."

Wortman and Gluhoski's conclusions stem from an ongoing study of a national sample of 3,617 married men and women interviewed in 1986. Participants ranged in age from 25 to 65 years. In 1989, experimenters conducted second interviews with 2,800 members of the original sample. Between the two interviews, 100 participants -- mostly women -- experienced the death of a spouse.

Bereaved individuals who began the study with a variety of characteristics associated with good psychological functioning -- including minimal marital conflict, positive self-image, feelings of control over the direction of their lives, and high scores on tests of verbal intelligence and attention -- reported substantially more depression in 1989 than did bereaved individuals displaying essentially the opposite pattern. Depression also appeared more often among those who earned the most money prior to bereavement, regardless of what their spouses earned.

The researchers have yet to analyze data on anxiety, social activities and feelings of well-being following the death of a spouse, or the influence of reported religious faith on psychological adjustment to the loss.

An important check on the study's findings will come from a similar long-term project initiated in 1988 -- also headed by the Stony Brook researchers -- involving about 1,500 elderly, married people living in the Detroit area. Statistical analyses should proceed in the next year or two as the number of bereaved participants increases, Wortman says.

The new research complements previous findings that many bereaved spouses and parents become depressed and do not come to terms with their loss for at least four years (SN: 2/7/87, p.84), while a substantial minority show little distress after the loss.