Hazel M. Prelow

Perceived Racial Discrimination, Social Support, and Psychological Adjustment among African American College Students.

The purpose of this study was to examine three competing models of the relations among perceived discrimination, social support, and indicators of psychological adjustment in a sample of 135 African American college students. The three competing models, social support buffering, social support mobilization, and social support deterioration, were tested within a regression framework. The buffering model, which predicted that social support would interact with perceived discrimination such that individuals with high levels of social support would be protected from the harmful effects of discrimination, was not supported. The social support mobilization model, which predicted that support networks would mobilize to support individuals exposed to discrimination, was also not supported. Support was only obtained for the social support deterioration model, which predicted that social support would decrease for those exposed to discrimination. Perceived racial discrimination was associated with lower perceptions of social support, greater symptoms of depression, and lower levels of life satisfaction.

Externalizing and Internalizing Problems in Low-Income Latino Early Adolescents Risk, Resource, and Protective Factors

The current investigation examined the role of cumulative risk, family routines, maternal monitoring, mother-child relationship quality, and youth socioemotional competence in adjustment outcomes of 521 10- to 14-year-old low-income Latino early adolescents. Results showed that, as the number of risk factors increased, levels of externalizing and internalizing problems also increased. Furthermore, findings indicated that socio-emotional competence was predictive of fewer externalizing and internalizing problems for females independent of the level of cumulative risk. Maintenance of family routines protected females exposed to elevated levels of cumulative risk from heightened levels of externalizing problems. Despite exposure to multiple risk factors, boys high in socio-emotional competence and those boys reporting a good quality mother-son relationship were protected from elevated levels of adjustment problems. Results underscore the importance of examining within-group variability among young Latino adolescents.

Hope and Life Satisfaction in Black College Students Coping With Race-Related Stress

This exploratory study examined the effects of hope and coping with race-related stress on life satisfaction in Black college students. Findings indicated that students with high hope had greater coping efficacy and used more problem-focused coping than students with low hope. Neither coping nor hope had a direct effect on life satisfaction. However, six of the nine Coping × Hope interactions were significant. Contrary to expectations, the pattern of interactions suggested that for students with high hope, life satisfaction was associated with less frequent use of active coping strategies, and for students with low hope, life satisfaction was associated with greater use of active coping strategies. We suggest future directions for research on the role of hope and coping in Black individuals dealing with race-related stress.

Do Coping Styles Differ Across Sociocultural Groups? The Role of Measurement Equivalence in Making This Judgment

Cross-sociocultural group measurement equivalency is an important issue that generally has not been studied in the coping literature. Measurement equivalency of the COPE (Carver, Scheier, & Weintraub, 1989) was assessed across two sociocultural groups, a sample of 100 Anglo middle-class divorced mothers and a sample of 122 low-income Mexican American/Mexican immigrant mothers. A series of restrictive confirmatory factor analyses revealed that seven of the COPEs subscales may be measuring the same underlying construct across populations. However, scores derived from the subscales may not represent the same magnitude of the construct in these two groups. This study makes an important first step in furthering the understanding of coping strategies in low-income Mexican American/Mexican immigrant mothers. This study also illustrates the importance of testing for measurement equivalency before conducting comparative research in disparate populations.

Coping and Social Support as Mediators of the Relation of Optimism to Depressive Symptoms Among Black College Students

This investigation examines mechanisms through which optimism may influence psychological adjustment among 133 Black college students. Specifically, this study evaluates the extent to which active and avoidant coping and social support account for the association between optimism and depressive symptoms. Participants completed questionnaires that included the Life Orientation Test-Revised, the COPE, the Social Provisions Scale, and the 12-item Center for Epidemiological Studies Depression Scale. Avoidant coping and social support mediated the relation between optimism and depressive symptoms, whereas active coping did not mediate this relationship. Results partially replicate those of prior research and illustrate the need for culturally sensitive theory regarding the combined effect of personality, coping strategies, and social support on psychological adjustment to stressful situations.

Measuring Coping in Low-Income European American, African American, and Mexican American Adolescents: An Examination of Measurement Equivalence

We examined the cross-ethnic and cross-language equivalence of the Childrens Coping Strategies Checklist (Ayers, T.S., Sandler, I.N., West, S.G. and Roosa, M.W. (1996). A dispositional and situational assessment of childrens coping: Testing alternative models of coping. Journal of Personality , 64 (4), 923-958) by assessing item, functional, and scalar equivalence in a sample of 319 European American, African American, and Mexican American adolescents from low-income inner-city families. Depression, as measured by Childrens Depression Inventory, was the criterion in the analyses of scalar equivalence. The results suggest considerable cross-ethnic and cross-language measurement equivalence of the Childrens Coping Strategies Checklist. The findings also suggest some caution in using the Childrens Depression Inventory in comparative studies of African American and Mexican American adolescents or in studies that treat these groups as homogeneous samples.