What specific findings were reported? o Were the hypotheses supported? Research

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What specific findings were reported? o Were the hypotheses supported? Research Article Time Does Not Heal All Wounds A Longitudinal Study of Reaction and Adaptation to Divoree Riehard E. Lueas Michigan State University and German Institute of Economic Research, Berlin, Germany ARSTRACT-Cro-setionel stedics shone thot dicorAldough theare is consideralde evidence for the estence af ?1, report lower levels of life sotisfertion than do mar- these adaptatien effets, questions rennain about their strength rind people. Boceer, such studies cannot determine wheth and whiquity. These questions result from the difficulties that er satisfaction actually changes following dieorce. In the arise when studying life events. Life events cannot be repro- eurrent study, data from an 18 year panel study of more than daced in the laboratory, and there-fore it is almost impossible to 30,000 Germans were wsed to examine reaction and ad. study them experimentally. Furthermore, most life events are aptation to divorce. Results show that satisfaction drops as relatively rare, and thas large samples are needed to find sffi- one appreaches divorce and then gradually rebounds oser cient numbers of individuals who have experienced the event in time. Howerer, the return to baseline is not complete. In question. Finally, life events are not completely exogenous addition, prospective analyses show that people who will Instead, individual diflerences-inclading differences in well- divorce are less happy than those cho stay married, even heing-may make life events more or less likely to occur for before either group gets married. Thus, the association different people (Diener, Nickerson, Lacas, & Sandvik, 2002 between divorce and life satisfaction is due to both preex Headey & Wearing. 1969, Marks& Fleming. 1999). Thus,even isting differences and lasting changes folloning the event. when cruss-sectional studies show that a past life event is or is not associated with subjective well-being, it is difficult to de- termine whether within-penon changes in well-being have ac- tually occured. Without such information, it is impossible to One of the most surprising findings in the study of emotion and subjective well-being is that life events do not seem to have a strong eflect on happiness and life satisfaction Although people dread the prospect of becoening disahled, losing their job, or ending a romantic relationship, much existing research suggests draw strong conclusions about adaptation effects. In the current study, I examined lang-term changes in life satisfaction before and alter divorce. Cross-sectional studies have consistently shown that marital status is associaled with life not suffer long term emptional cosrqurnces from satisfaction, with married people reporting higher levels than divorced people (Haring-Hidore, Stock, Okun, &Witter;, 1985; Myers, 1999). Yet longitudinal evidence about the processes that are responsible for these effects is sparse and inconclusive. Most longitudinal studies are limited by small sample sizes, shom durations, or few measurement occasions (see Johnson& W 2002, and laucas, Clark, Georgellis, & Diener, 2003, for reviews In addition, most studies have slarted tracking people very clos s to the time of divorce, which means that preevent lesels of wel these events, Most studics show that life events for only short periods of tinse, and that people have an amazing ability to adapt to almast any life cireumstance (Briekman, Coates, & Janoff-Bulman, 1978 Frederick& Lewenstein, 199 Headey & Wearing, 1989 Suh, Diener,&Fujita;, 1996). In fact, adaptation effects appear to be so strong and so ubiquitous that some researchers have suggested that emotions are regulated by or few In addition, points (Brickman& Campbell, 1971: Headey & Weagng are mot known. Finally, the lew long-term prmspecti 1992). People may temporarily move away from their average level, but over time, bedonic adaplation returns them to baseline. studies that exist have arrived at conflicting conclusions ab adaptation effects. For example, Booth and Amato (1991) fou that adaptation to divorce was complete, but when Johnson a Wu (2002) analyzed the same sample of participants (with additional wave of data and a different analytic model).t Address correspondence to Richard E. Lucas, Department of Pay- chology, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI 48824: e-mail: found that divorce was associated with permanent change lacasri@msu.ndu. levels of distress

Explanation / Answer

The hypothesis that; time does not heal all wounds was supported by this longitudinal research as the findings of this research indicate with time people do improve emotionally but the return to baseline does not happen as the trauma is difficult to overcome. Thus the emotional trauma of divorce is very difficult to heal and overcome even with the passage of time.    

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