Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: Key Words: Stress Vulnerability, SES, SEX, Blacks, Neighborhood
This paper contributes to the growing research investigating how variations in stress exposure, due to stratification, may account for differences in vulnerability to depression. Previous research on stress has focused on checklist measures to account for black/white differences in depression without much attention to the role of stratification in accounting for different stressful experiences. An additional dimension of status included is neighborhood characteristics where residential segregation patterns populations racially, economically and socially. Results indicate variations in SES and sex were significant predictors of depression. Discrimination and neighborhood context played minimal roles in predicting depression. Suggestions for future research investigating how stressful life events and other social stressors induce depressive symptoms are discussed.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: This paper speaks to the debate concerning whether chronic stressors or life event stressors are more important predictors of adolescent depression, focusing on criminal victimization, repeating a grade, and suspended or expelled from school as life event stressors. Alienation in school and poor academic performance are assessed as chronic educational stressors. Specifically, the paper assesses the relative importance of life event stressors and chronic educational stressors in predicting adolescent depression, holding constant prior depression and demographic controls. I assess these relationships using ordinary least squares regression and panel data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health. The findings demonstrate that the life event stressors of criminal victimization and repeating a grade and the chronic educational stressors of poor academic performance and alienation in school are independent predictors of adolescent depression. Although chronic educational stress at school has larger effects on depression than do chronic life events, the differences are minimal.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: This research focuses on stress, burnout, and violent behavior by law enforcement officers. Existing research on police stress frequently concentrates on critical event stress, organizational structure, and psychological exhaustion as sources of self-destructive behavior by police officers. This paper utilizes direct officer interviews in three Midwest police departments and findings of this research confirm that critical events, organizational relationships, and burnout matter in police behavior. The story, however, is far from complete. Deeply masculinized police culture, a topic rarely addressed in existing research, profoundly influences and interacts with each of these factors known to be associated with police behavior.

Masculine social structures in law enforcement agencies leave few avenues for officers to manage the high stress associated with this career. In fact, when dealing with stress and burnout, informal police culture more readily accepts many negative behaviors—violence and excessive alcohol consumption—than psychological treatments. The informal culture produces powerful normative standards requiring strict adherence this code of conduct. This norm leaves officers with limited opportunity to address naturally arising work stress, compounding preexisting strain. Officers who display emotional responses risk severe negative sanctions by peers including the label of incompetence.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: This study analyzes panel data (two surveys, two years apart) on dual-earner couples (N = 873) to test a model of within-couple stress contagion. We examine whether changes in job stress in the form of negative work spillover “crossover” to negatively influence the well-being of employees’ spouses. Couple-level structural models identify evidence of crossover effects from employees to their spouses, but findings are not consistent with the stress contagion model. Decreases in men’s and women’s negative work spillover predict increased distress in their spouses. Post-hoc evidence indicates that these relationships are explained through own and spousal appraisals of work burden and home demands. We also provide a test distinguishing whether the effects of stress contagion cumulate over time, or whether individuals adapt to their partner’s ongoing work stress, finding support for the adaptation hypothesis.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: Two fundamental propositions are explored: 1) do differences in exposure to social stress account for variations in stress exposure for race and gender and 2) do variations in stress exposure account for the additional stress burden that women caught in the intersections of race, class and gender experience. As regards predicting depressive symptoms, the types of strains that were implicated for Black males was having a serious illness, low decision making latitude jobs, perceptions of financial stress and adverse health behaviors. For Black females, not feeling safe in their neighborhoods and demands from family were predictors of depressive symptoms. Moreover, discrimination and the stress induced by racist acts were significant predictors of adverse mental health for both Black males and Black females. For Whites, the antecedents of stress that were implicated in mental health risk were more acute than chronic. Results indicate for White males that the most influential events associated with depressive symptoms were being a victim of a robbery and not feeling safe in the residential neighborhoods. Not being married, relationship hassles, too many spousal demands, and perceptions of chronic strains were strongly related to depressive symptoms for White females. Placing “social strains” in comparative perspective for status groups, results from the paper provide evidence that the types of stressors Black males and Black females experience are chronic and systemic strains that are a result of racial stratification. For Whites, the predictors of adverse mental health seem to be more domestic than systemic.