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An Idiographic and Nomothetic Approach to the Study of Mexican-Origin Adolescent Mothers’ Socio-cultural Stressors and Adjustment

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Abstract

The current study examined the longitudinal relations of socio-cultural stressors (i.e., acculturative stressors, enculturative stressors, ethnic discrimination) and Mexican-origin adolescent mothers’ depressive symptoms and risk-taking behaviors. Utilizing an idiographic and nomothetic approach, we conducted lagged analyses to examine how individuals’ fluctuations in stressors predicted subsequent adjustment. Further, we investigated potential threshold effects by examining if the impact of fluctuations in stressors differed at varying levels of stressors. Mexican-origin adolescent females (N = 184) participated in yearly in-home assessments across 5 years and reported on their experiences of acculturative and enculturative stressors, ethnic discrimination, depressive symptoms, and risk-taking behaviors. Findings revealed that within-person fluctuations in acculturative stressors and, to a lesser extent, perceived discrimination related to youths’ depressive symptoms. For risk-taking behaviors, however, only within-person fluctuations in enculturative stressors emerged as significant. Further, a threshold effect emerged in the link between enculturative stressors and risk-taking behaviors, suggesting that fluctuations in enculturative stressors predicted changes in risk-taking behaviors at high levels of enculturative stressors but not low levels. Our findings highlight the differential relations between socio-cultural stressors and adolescent females’ adjustment and suggest that prevention programs aimed at reducing depressive symptoms should attend to any degree of change in socio-cultural stressors, whereas programs focused on risk-taking behaviors should be especially attuned to levels of enculturative stress.

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Notes

  1. Acculturative and enculturative stresses were not assessed at W5. As explained in the analytic section, lagged data analyses were conducted in which outcomes (i.e., depressive symptoms, risk-taking behaviors) were regressed on prior levels of stressors. Given this, analyses only utilized W1–W4 stressor values and W2–W5 outcome values.

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Acknowledgments

This research was supported by funds from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (R01HD061376; PI: Umaña-Taylor), the Department of Health and Human Services (APRPA006011; PI: Umaña-Taylor), and the Cowden Fund and Challenged Child Project of the T. Denny Sanford School of Social and Family Dynamics at Arizona State University. We thank the adolescents and female family members who participated in this study. We also thank Edna Alfaro, Mayra Bámaca, Diamond Bravo, Emily Cansler, Lluliana Flores, Melinda Gonzales-Backen, Elizabeth Harvey, Melissa Herzog, Sarah Killoren, Ethelyn Lara, Esther Ontiveros, Jacqueline Pflieger, Alicia Godinez, and the undergraduate research assistants of the Supporting MAMI project for their contributions to the larger study. Katharine Zeiders, Adriana Umaña-Taylor, and Kimberly Updegraff are affiliated with the T. Denny Sanford School of Social and Family Dynamics, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ 85287-3701. Laudan Jahromi is affiliated with Teachers College, Columbia University, New York, NY 10027. K. Zeiders is now at the University of Missouri, Columbia, MO.

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Correspondence to Katharine H. Zeiders.

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Zeiders, K.H., Umaña-Taylor, A.J., Updegraff, K.A. et al. An Idiographic and Nomothetic Approach to the Study of Mexican-Origin Adolescent Mothers’ Socio-cultural Stressors and Adjustment. Prev Sci 16, 386–396 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11121-014-0502-2

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