Anita P. Jackson

Resource Loss, Resource Gain, and Emotional Outcomes Among Inner City Women

The authors examined a dynamic conceptualization of stress by investigating how economic stress, measured in terms of material loss, alters womens personal and social resources and how these changed resources impact anger and depressive mood. Resource change in womens mastery and social support over 9 months was significantly associated with changes in depressive mood and anger among 714 inner city women. Greater loss of mastery and social support was associated with increased depressive mood and anger. Loss of mastery and social support also mediated the impact of material loss on depressive mood and anger. Resource loss and worsening economic circumstances had more negative impact than resource gain and improving economic circumstances had positive impact, suggesting the greater saliency of loss than gain.

Reducing inner-city women's AIDS risk activities: a study of single, pregnant women.

Behavioral change reduces risk of HIV infection and development of AIDS. We compared 206 inner-city women who were randomly assigned to a 4-session AIDS-prevention group or to one of two controls, a health-promotion group or a no-intervention group. AIDS-prevention and health-promotion groups provided information, behavioral competency training, and social support. Only the AIDS-prevention group focused on AIDS-specific knowledge and skills. The AIDS-prevention group produced moderate, consistent increases in knowledge and safer sex behaviors in comparison with either the health-promotion or no-intervention group. Self-report and objective changes were sustained 6 months after intervention for both African-American and European-American women.

The Impact of Communal-Mastery Versus Self-Mastery on Emotional Outcomes During Stressful Conditions: A Prospective Study of Native American Women

Past research has examined the stress resiliency of individuals high in sense of personal-mastery. However, it has been theorized that within more collectivist cultures, a sense of shared efficacy, which we call communal-mastery, may be more central to peoples resiliency in the face of challenging life circumstances. We compared the impact of sense of self-mastery (i.e., “I am the key to my success”) to that of communal-mastery (i.e., “I am successful by virtue of my social attachments”) in a prospective study among a group of rural 103 Native American women residing on Indian Reservations in Montana. We found that women high in communal-mastery experienced less increase in depressive mood and anger, especially when faced with high stress circumstances, than women who were low in communal-mastery. In addition, the beneficial impact of communal-mastery was found to be more effective than self-mastery for these women.

Safer sex knowledge, behavior, and attitudes of inner-city women.

Sexual behavior, knowledge of HIV transmission and prevention, perceived risk of AIDS, and safer sex behavior were studied in a sample of 289 single, pregnant, inner-city women. African-American and European-American women were equally represented. Women had poor AIDS knowledge. Sexual behavior placed women at risk for HIV infection due to the lack of condom or spermicide use. Women did not perceive themselves at risk for the AIDS virus, although they did recognize that heterosexuals were at risk. Their lack of risk perception was partly based on their having a single sexual partner. They did not regard their partners current or past behavior as placing them at risk. Recommendations for intervention and cultural differences were discussed.

Conservation of resources in community intervention

Evaluated the applications of principles of resource conservation and management in community interventions and compared these to a more individual, perception-based psychological perspective. Conservation of resource theory suggests that promotion of well-being and prevention of disease depend on the availability and successful management of resources. When resources are lacking, lost, or when invested without consequent gain, people become vulnerable to psychological and physical disorder and debilitated functioning. Resources, in this context, are defined as those things people value or those things that may help people obtain that which they value. Conservation of resource theory further suggests that resources are to a large extent common to all people, more common within a given culture and time in the developmental cycle, and only to a small extent idiographic. Further, conservation of resource theory posits that resources operate within an ecological context where feedback, sharing, and exchange operate between the individual, social context, and environment. Given these principles, it is reasoned that community interventions must acknowledge the solid base of most problems and accept that interventions must target resources and be intensive enough to change the ecology in which resources operate.

Child Sexual Abuse and Adulthood Interpersonal Outcomes: Examining Pathways for Intervention.

We examined a dual pathway, longitudinal mediational model in which child sexual abuse (CSA) influences adulthood-interpersonal functioning and sexual risk through its impact on resiliency resources and psychological distress. Women were recruited from two obstetrics and gynecological clinics serving primarily low-income, inner-city women (N = 693) and interviewed at pretest (Time 1) and 6-month follow-up (Time 2). The proposed mediators were resiliency resources (i.e., self-esteem and self-efficacy) and psychological distress (i.e., depressive and posttraumatic stress symptoms). The interpersonal outcomes were general interpersonal problems (measured via recent loss of interpersonal resources, lack of perceived current social support, and recent social conflict) and HIV/sexual risk (measured via lack of confidence asserting safe-sex practices, intimate-partner risk, and perceived barriers to safe sex). A respecified, partial structural equation model implying full mediation supported our hypotheses. Model fit was assessed using the chi-square goodness-of-fit statistic, comparative-fit index (CFI), root mean square error of approximation (RMSEA), and standardized root mean square residual (SRMR; CFI = .96, RMSEA = .05, SRMR = .04). The impact of CSA on interpersonal problems was mediated through its effect on psychological distress, whereas the impact of CSA on HIV/sexual risk was mediated through its effect on resiliency resources. Implications for intervention are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record

Proximal and Distal Predictors of AIDS Risk Behaviors among Inner-city African American and European American Women:

AIDS risk behavior and attitudes towards safer sex were studied in a sample of 666 African American and 626 European American women. Condom use, AIDS-related knowledge, risk perception, self-efficacy beliefs, attitudes and perceived partner attitudes, and an assertive coping style were analyzed with regard to mean differences and predictive power in both ethnic groups. Compared to European American women, African American women had less knowledge and lower self-efficacy beliefs towards safer sex behavior, but they perceived themselves to be at more risk and reported greater condom use. Further, ethnicity was found to moderate the effects of the psychological predictors on safer sex behavior. This moderator effect was tested using a structural equation modeling design. In both groups, risk perception was the strongest predictor of condom use. Among African American women, social-cognitive barriers (e.g. low self-efficacy beliefs, negative attitude towards condom use) worked as a second predictor and mediator of the effects of risk perception on condom use. In contrast, among European American women, social-cognitive factors had no effect on condom use. In general, prediction of safer sex behavior was stronger among African American women.

Women's barriers to safer sex

Abstract We examined womens barriers to safer sex and the development of a 14-item, multi-dimensional, barriers to safer sex scale. In Study 1, model testing and scale development was conducted on a population of 503 African and European American, inner-city, pregnant, single women. We found four factors that closely parallel theoretical barriers that are cited in the literature: a) partner and self objections, b) the appraisal that one is not at risk, c) embarrassment, and d) giving up pleasure. In Study 2, convergent and divergent validity data supported the construct validity of the theoretical model and scale. In Study 3, the four subscales were found to be reliable among an additional sample of 72 single, college women. Subscale means for the community and student samples differed significantly, indicating important population differences. More modest differences were found between African American and European American women.

Ambiguity of Monogamy as a Safer-sex Goal Among Single, Pregnant, Inner-city Women Monogamy by Whose Definition?

We examined the ambiguity of monogamy as a safer-sex goal in a sample of young, inner- city women (N = 447), of whom 58 percent were African- American and 42 percent European-American. It was our premise that women may be misperceiving and underestimating their risk due to differences in their definition and beliefs about monogamy, and thus are not changing their behavior. When compared to long-term monogamous women (self-reporting one partner in the past year), serially monogamous women (reporting two or more partners in the past year) perceived themselves at greater risk but did not report more frequent use of condoms. It is possible that a suggestion of monogamy may be subject to multiple interpretations and thus could be providing women with a false sense of safety. Risk reduction should be defined in specific behavioral terms.

Life stressors, mastery, and perceived partner engagement in HIV-Risk behavior

The relationships among level of personal mastery economic stress number of sexual partners pregnancy status and perceived partner engagement in HIV-risk behaviors (i.e. intravenous drug use imprisonment and sex with other partners) were studied in a sample of 1069 single inner-city women. African American and European Americans were equally represented. We predicted that greater economic stress a lower sense of personal mastery and more sexual partners would be associated with greater perceptions of partner engagement in HIV-risk behavior. We also predicted that personal mastery would serve as a moderating variable in the presence of life stressors (e.g. being pregnant having multiple sexual partners). The findings supported the hypotheses. Women with more economic stress multiple sexual partners and lower personal mastery reported higher perceived partner engagement in HIV-risk behavior than women with lower economic stress one sexual partner and higher personal mastery. Personal mastery had a greater impact for women with multiple sexual partners and for those who were pregnant. These findings were qualified by womens ethnicity. (authors)