ABSTRACT
The relationship between stressful life events experienced by the family (i.e., contextual stress) and the child's negotiation of salient developmental tasks has recently emerged as a major area of research in child development, particularly the field of developmental psychopathology (Beautrais, Fergusson, & Shannon, 1982; Garmezy, 1981; Madge, 1983; Masten et al., 1988; Pianta, Egeland, & Sroufe, 1990; Rutter, 1979; Wallerstein & Kelly, 1980). Research has demonstrated that this relationship between contextual stress and a child's development is not linear; that is, the absence of stress does not cause competence nor does the presence result in lack of competence. Rather the effects occur within a broader and infinitely more complex system that is mediated and affected by individual, developmental, relationship, and environmental variables (Pianta et al., 1990).
