Socioeconomic Differences in Adolescent Stress: The Role of Psychological Resources
Received 9 June 2006; accepted 2 October 2006.
Abstract
Purpose
To investigate whether psychological resources influenced the association between parent education (PE), a marker of socioeconomic status (SES), and perceived stress.
Methods
Cross-sectional analyses were conducted in a sample of 1167 non-Hispanic black and white junior and senior high school students from a Midwestern public school district in 2002–2003. Hierarchical multivariable regression analyses examined relationships between PE (high school graduate or less = E1, > high school, < college = E2, college graduate = E3, and professional degree = E4), and psychological resources (optimism and coping style) on teens’ perceived stress. Greater optimism and adaptive coping were hypothesized to influence (i.e., mediate or moderate) the relationship between higher PE and lower stress.
Results
Relative to adolescents from families with a professionally educated parent, adolescents with lower parent education had higher perceived stress (E3 β = 1.70, p < .01, E2 β = 1.94, p < .01, E1 β = 3.19, p < .0001). Both psychological resources were associated with stress: higher optimism (β = − .58, p < .0001) and engagement coping (β = − .19, p < .0001) were associated with less stress and higher disengagement coping was associated with more stress (β = .09, p < .01). Adding optimism to the regression model attenuated the effect of SES by nearly 30%, suggesting that optimism partially mediates the inverse SES-stress relationship. Mediation was confirmed using a Sobel test (p < .01).
Conclusions
Adolescents from families with lower parent education are less optimistic than teens from more educated families. This pessimism may be a mechanism through which lower SES increases stress in adolescence.
bDepartment of Society, Human Development and Health, Harvard School of Public Health, Boston, Massachusetts
cCentral Valley Health Policy Institute, College of Health & Human Services, California State University, Fresno, California
dDepartment of Pediatrics, The Floating Hospital for Children, Tufts - New England Medical Center, Boston, Massachusetts
Address correspondence to: Elizabeth Goodman, M.D., Department of Pediatrics, Tufts - New England Medical Center, NEMC Box 351, 750 Washington Street, Boston, MA 02111.
ABSTRACT