Date of Award

12-1-2023

Language

English

Document Type

Master's Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Arts (MA)

College/School/Department

Department of Psychology

Dissertation/Thesis Chair

Elana B Gordis

Committee Members

James F Boswell

Keywords

academic stress, adverse family experiences, ethnic identity, psychological distress, undergraduate students

Subject Categories

Clinical Psychology

Abstract

Mental health problems have been associated with lower academic performance amongundergraduate students. In addition to individual well-being, environmental and cultural factors may contribute to greater academic stress. Specifically, early adverse family experiences (e.g., abuse, neglect, and family conflict) can have deleterious impacts on an individual’s emotional adjustment and perception of academic stress. However, the influence of ethnicity on the link between early family adversity and later academic stress has been largely understudied. Objective: This study examined whether adverse family experiences and ethnicity moderate the link between psychological distress and academic stress. Methods: Participants (N = 284, 38.4% male, 59.5% female, 1% non-binary, and .7% transgender, 56.5% White, 15.6% Black, 12.6% Hispanic/Latino, 8.5% Asian, 6.8% Mixed/Biracial) self-reported psychological distress, exposure to early adverse family experiences, and perception of academic stress. Results: Regression analyses revealed a three-way interaction between early adverse family experiences, ethnicity, and psychological distress significantly accounting for perceived academic stress. Simple slope analyses indicated that higher levels of psychological distress was associated with an increased vulnerability for higher perceived academic stress among African American students under conditions of greater adverse family experiences. Conclusion: Our findings evidenced that the relation between psychological distress and academic stress cannot be clarified without joint consideration of both ethnicity and adverse family experience. These results highlighted how early life African American family level factors may be particularly salient in buffering academic stress during emerging adulthood

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