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A cascade model connecting life stress to risk behavior among rural African American emerging adults

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 June 2010

Gene H. Brody ,
Yi-Fu Chen  and
Steven M. Kogan
Gene H. Brody*
Affiliation:
University of Georgia
Yi-Fu Chen
Affiliation:
University of Georgia
Steven M. Kogan
Affiliation:
University of Georgia
*
Address correspondence and reprint requests to: Gene H. Brody, Center for Family Research, University of Georgia, 1095 College Station Road, Athens, GA 30602-4527; E-mail: gbrody@uga.edu.
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Abstract

A three-wave cascade model linking life stress to increases in risk behavior was tested with 347 African American emerging adults living in the rural South. Data analyses using structural equation modeling and latent growth curve modeling demonstrated that life stress was linked to increases in risk behavior as African Americans transitioned out of secondary school. The cascade model indicated that life stress fostered increases in negative emotions. Negative emotions, in turn, were linked to increases in affiliations with deviant peers and romantic partners; this forecast increases in risk behavior. The findings supported a stress proliferation framework, in which primary stressors affect increases in secondary stressors that carry forward to influence changes in risk behaviors that can potentially compromise mental health.

Type
Regular Articles
Information
Development and Psychopathology , Volume 22 , Issue 3: Developmental Cascades: Part 1 , August 2010 , pp. 667 - 678
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2010

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