An Extension and Moderational Analysis of the Family Stress Model Focusing on African American Adolescents

Theoretical Framework and Gaps in Previous Economic Hardship LiteratureAfrican American families have traditionally suffered above-average levels of economic problems and continue to do so in the present economically challenging environment (U.S. Bureau of the Census, 2012), so there is great interest in how these families and their children have been influenced by economic difficulties in their lives. The family stress model (FSM; see Figure 1) has been used effectively to show that economic hardship results in practical difficulties for families that manifests in greater economic pressure, which creates an environment that impairs the mental health of adults in the family as measured by increased depressive symptoms, which negatively affects their relationships with each other as indicated by caregiver relationship conflict (Cutrona et al., 2003; 2011). This conflict in turn spills over into their relationships with children in the home taking the form of more hostile and less warm parenting, which is associated with more negative outcomes for children (Conger, Conger, & Martin, 2010; Conger, Ge, Elder, Lorenz, & Simons, 1994).In 2002, the FSM was used successfully by Conger, McLoyd, Wallace, Sun, Simons, and Brody (2002) to evaluate the impact of economic problems experienced by African American families on children's internalizing, externalizing, and positive behaviors via the pathways depicted in the model. Although Conger et al. examined these issues using the same sample as in this study, this article extends analyses in several ways. Methodologically, the 2002 analyses were cross sectional and offered a test of the full model using only one wave of data. Longitudinal research has been generally lacking in studies of African American families (Conger et al., 2010), so it is significant that this analyses evaluate the model using two waves of data to examine family processes over time and to predict residual changes in adolescent development outcomes mitigating the possibility of reverse hypotheses because the predictor variable is temporally prior to the change in outcome. The FSM may operate uniquely within African American families because of the greater incidence of persistent poverty, which is often accompanied by a smaller pool of economic resources and support within the immediate and extended family (McLoyd, 1990). The long-term stress of this lower level of economic support and resources may erode positive interactions within the family (Gutman, McLoyd, & Tokoyawa, 2005), having implications for child outcomes.Although influence of the FSM on child outcomes has been well documented, there has been no longitudinal test of the model on children as they transition into adolescence. We have become more knowledgeable about adolescence as a stage of development and more certain about its importance in the developmental trajectories that follow into adulthood, yet there is a dearth of family process research focusing on children age 10 to 14 as they transition into the stage (Blodgett Salafia, Gondoli, & Grundy, 2008). Internalizing problems are more common during adolescence than in preadolescence (Kingery, Erdley, Marshall, Whitaker, & Reuter, 2010; Rosen & Patterson, 2011); thus, as children enter adolescence, they may be more vulnerable to developing emotional (internalizing) problems in response to economic (or any other) stressor. Transitional periods may also leave the individual more vulnerable to caregiver psychological distress and disrupted family processes (Easterbrooks & Emde, 1988), so it may be of particular importance to focus on such stressors as economic hardship experienced by families while their children are becoming adolescents. Given that African American families are much more likely than families of other ethnicities to experience economic distress over longer periods of time, the focus on the transition into adolescence for African American children is doubly needed. …