Cross Ethnic Measures of Divorce Stressors and Appraisals

Although African American children are twice as likely as Euro-American children to experience divorce and 40% of all children will be African American or Hispanic by the year 2020, the majority of research on the impact of divorce on mental health outcomes have been conducted with primarily or exclusively Euro-American samples. This project begins to address this void in the literature. Specifically, this study addressed the cultural appropriateness of divorce specific measures (i.e. divorce stressors, appraisals, cognitive biases about divorce stressors, attitudes about divorce) that have been shown to predict children’s post divorce mental health in predominately Euro-American samples. Thirty African American and 30 English speaking Mexican American recently divorced custodial mothers and their 8-15 year old children participated. Given geographic differences in concentrations of ethnic minorities, African American and Mexican American families were recruited in Atlanta, GA and Phoenix, AZ, respectively. During in-home assessments, the above divorce-specific measures were administered to determine the cultural appropriateness of these measures. Semi-structure interviews assessing how the divorce affected a variety of areas (e.g. social support, nuclear and extended family relationships, economic conditions) were used to identify stressors that are unique to the experiences of African American and Mexican American families.

This study was conducted in collaboration with Sharlene Wolchik and Nancy A. Gonzales, Department of Psychology, Arizona State Univesrity and was funded by the National Institute of Mental Health.

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