It has been widely demonstrated that recent stressful events could impact wellbeing, nevertheless it is not clear whether stressful situations experienced in the pastand the internal resources used to deal with them can also influence older adult’s well- being. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the influence of stressful past events andemotional intelligence on negative affect, and to determine whether negative affect is related to older people’s wellbeing.

The Aging in Spain Longitudinal Study, Pilot Survey (ELES-PS) database wasused. The sample comprised 1747 participants (55.9% women), with ages between 50 to98 years-old (M = 66.2, SD = 10.6). Stressful past events were evaluated with a list of tenstressful events developed by the project team. Three items of the Trait-Meta-Mood scalewere used to assess emotional intelligence. In order to evaluate negative emotions, the PANAS scale of negative experience was used. Finally, life satisfaction was assessed using the Personal Wellbeing Index.

The results of the SEM model indicated that emotional intelligence predicted negative affect, and this in turn was related to participants wellbeing. However past stressful events showed no effect on either the emotional intelligence or on participants’ negative affect. Age was used as a control variable and influenced negative affect but didnot impact stressful past events.

Internal resources such as emotional intelligence appears to be more important than stressful past events in predicting successful aging.

Negative life events are strongly associated with the development of depression. However, the etiologic relationship between life events and depression is complex. Evidence suggests that life events can cause depression, and depression increases the risk for life events. Additionally, third factors influencing both phenotypes may be involved. In this work we sought to disentangle these relationships using a genetically informative longitudinal design.

Adult female twins (n=536, including 281 twin pairs) were followed up for measurements of negative life event exposure and depressive symptoms. Four follow-ups were completed, each approximately 3 months apart. Model fitting was carried out using the Mx program.

The best-fitting model included causal paths from life events to depressive symptoms for genetic and shared environmental risk factors, whereas paths from depressive symptoms to life events were apparent for shared environmental factors. Shared latent influence on both phenotypes was found for individual-specific effects.

Life events and depressive symptoms have complex inter-relationships that differ across sources of variance. The results of the model, if replicated, indicate that reducing life event exposure would reduce depressive symptoms and that lowering depressive symptoms would decrease the occurrence of negative life events.

Previous work suggests that exposure to childhood adversity is associated with the combination of delusions and hallucinations. In the present study, associations between (severity of) auditory vocal hallucinations (AVH) and (i) social adversity [traumatic experiences (TE) and stressful events (SE)] and (ii) delusional ideation were examined.

A baseline case-control sample of children with and without AVH were re-assessed on AVH after 5 years and interviewed about the experience of social adversity and delusions.

A total of 337 children (mean age 13.1 years, s.d.=0.5) were assessed: 40 children continued to hear voices that were present at baseline (24%, persistent group), 15 heard voices only at follow-up (9%, incident group), 130 children no longer reported AVH that were present at baseline (remitted group) and 152 never heard voices (referent group). Both TE and SE were associated with both incident and persistent AVH, as well as with greater AVH severity and delusional ideation at follow-up. In addition, the combination of AVH and delusions displayed a stronger association with TE and SE compared with either AVH or delusions alone.

Early childhood AVH are mostly benign and transitory. However, experience of social adversity is associated with persistence, severity and onset of new AVH closer to puberty, and with delusional ideation.

There is growing evidence on the importance of experiences of stressful events in the development of psychopathology. This study aimed to investigate the role of stressful events in the continuity of internalizing and externalizing problems, as well as the cross-influence of these problems from early childhood to late adolescence.

Data came from a general population sample of 396 children followed from the ages of 3 to 18 years. Parent-ratings of internalizing and externalizing problems at ages 3, 5, 10 and 18 years were used. Parents also reported on the presence of stressful events between the ages of 3 and 5 years, and 5 and 10 years. Adolescent reports on stressful events over the ages of 10–18 years were used. Structural equation models were used to disentangle/analyse the role of stressful events in the development of internalizing and externalizing problems.

From the age of 3 years onwards externalizing symptoms predicted experiences of stressful events. In turn, these experiences predicted later externalizing problems. Stressful events also explained part of the continuity of internalizing problems from the age of 10 years onwards, but not during childhood. From childhood onwards, cross-influences from externalizing problems to subsequent internalizing problems were found to run through stressful events. Only in adolescence cross-influences from internalizing problems to externalizing problems were found, again via stressful events.

From childhood onwards to late adolescence, stressful events play a significant role in both the continuity and the co-occurrence of externalizing and internalizing problems. Theoretical and methodological implications of these findings are discussed.