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Does Spousal Support Moderate the Association Between Perceived Racial Discrimination and Depressive Symptoms among African American Couples?
Author(s) -
McNeil Sharde’ N.,
Fincham Frank D.,
Beach Steven R. H.
Publication year - 2014
Publication title -
family process
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.011
H-Index - 74
eISSN - 1545-5300
pISSN - 0014-7370
DOI - 10.1111/famp.12054
Subject(s) - psychology , social support , depressive symptoms , mental health , association (psychology) , clinical psychology , partner effects , coping (psychology) , african american , social psychology , psychiatry , anxiety , psychotherapist , ethnology , history
Social stress theory proposes that stress resulting from one's social position in society leads to fewer coping resources, and subsequently causes an increase in mental health problems. Guided by this framework, we investigated whether the relationship between perceived discrimination and depressive symptoms was moderated by spousal social support in a sample of 487 A frican A merican heterosexual couples. Using the actor‐partner interdependence model, findings suggested that female partner's perceived racial discrimination was predictive of her depressive symptomology irrespective of spousal support and male partner's perceived racial discrimination was predictive of depressive symptomology only among men with low levels of spousal support. No partner effects were present. The results demonstrate the need to examine variability in social stress and mental health outcomes for those in close relationships.