The Proximity of Common Unhappiness and Misery

Abstract

The author explores whether the effects of established social risk factors are consistent across the entire range of depression symptoms, guided by the intuition that more severe depression is endogenous in origin and therefore less subject to social influence. Using the National Comorbidity Survey Replication, the author specifically explores transitions between progressive quintiles on the K10 scale of psychological distress using a continuation ratio model. The results reveal that the risk factors sociologists have explored almost exclusively using dimensional measures (e.g., schooling, income, subjective status, life events, social support, marriage) have effects that are generally consistent across the range of symptom severities, whether in terms of transitioning from no symptoms to average unhappiness or from average unhappiness to major depression. Indeed, for a few distal causes, including schooling and income, the association grows stronger with more severe symptoms, whereas for some proximate causes, including traumatic life events and headache, the association grows weaker. Although the results encourage sociologists to remain confident in the power of social risk factors, they complicate debates regarding what a “normal” response to stress is. Normal has no natural benchmark that can be identified using the range of effects associated with social risk factors.