Search

Existing disparities regarding Black Americans' psychological health warrant further investigation of socioecological factors that may be associated with negative and positive dimensions of psychological health in this population. Romantic relationship functioning and neighborhood context are two domains relevant to Black Americans' mental health. However, less is known about how they may serve as independent and interactive prospective predictors of Black Americans' psychological health and potentially in distinctive ways for Black men and women. Using data from 333 partnered Black Americans who participated in the Midlife in the United States study, we investigated relationship adjustment and neighborhood quality as independent and interactive predictors of negative and positive affect 10 years later and examined gender differences in these linkages. Higher neighborhood quality predicted lower levels of negative affect and higher levels of positive affect for both men and women a decade later. Additionally, for Black men, the longitudinal association between relationship adjustment and negative affect differed by neighborhood quality such that better relationship adjustment predicted higher subsequent negative affect only for men in lower quality neighborhoods. Findings demonstrate the connections among romantic relationship functioning, ecological resources, and gender in this population and highlight the importance of incorporating socioecological and intersectional perspectives for predicting Black Americans' long-term psychological health. General Scientific Summary: This study suggests that living in higher quality neighborhoods is related to greater positive aspects and lower negative aspects of psychological health over time for Black Americans. Moreover, for Black men specifically, better romantic relationship functioning is connected to poorer psychological health when they reside in lower quality neighborhoods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Financial well-being may be an important context for daily emotional reactivity to relationship tension (e.g., arguments) whose salience varies across historical time or as a function of exposure to economic downturns. This study investigated how emotional reactivity, operationalized as daily fluctuations in negative and positive affect associated with the occurrence of daily relationship tension, varied by financial well-being among those who were and were not exposed to the Great Recession of 2008. Two matched, independent subsamples of partnered individuals from the National Study of Daily Experiences completed identical 8-day diary protocols, one before the Great Recession (n = 587) and one after (n = 351). Individuals reported higher negative affect and lower positive affect on days when relationship tension occurred. Further, results indicated that negative affect reactivity, but not positive affect reactivity, was moderated by both financial well-being and cohort status. For the pre-recession cohort, negative affect reactivity was stronger among those with lower financial well-being. However, among the post-recession cohort, financial well-being did not moderate negative affect reactivity to relationship tension. Findings highlight the utility of considering major societal events, such as economic downturns, to understand variability in emotional reactivity to day-to-day relationship tension in the context of financial well-being, as the salience of financial well-being in the ways relationship tension and negative affect are related on a daily basis appears to vary by historical context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An increasing body of work documents the roles of religion and spirituality in Black American marriages. We built on this research to examine religious coping as a potential cultural resource for Black marriages using a dyadic analytic approach with longitudinal data. Specifically, we investigated the effects of positive (i.e., sense of spiritual connectedness) and negative (i.e., spiritual tension or struggle) religious coping on trajectories of marital love reported by wives and husbands in 161 Black, married, mixed‐gender couples, and we tested the potential moderating role of spouse gender. At baseline, spouses reported on their religious coping, and they rated their marital love at baseline and during two additional home interviews conducted annually. Data were analyzed using growth curve modeling within an Actor‐Partner Interdependence Modeling framework. Husbands who reported more positive religious coping at baseline exhibited relatively high and stable marital love over time, whereas those who reported less positive religious coping reported less love at baseline and exhibited declines in love over time. Wives who reported less negative religious coping at baseline were higher in marital love initially but showed declines over time, whereas those who reported more negative religious coping at baseline were lower in marital love initially but showed increases in love over time. Results highlight the importance of further research on the role of religion and religious coping in Black couples' marital experiences and suggest differential roles of positive and negative religious coping for men's and women's marital love. Clinical and policy implications are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cognitive-behavioral conjoint therapy (CBCT) for posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) has demonstrated efficacy for improving PTSD and comorbid symptoms and relationship adjustment. To enhance treatment efficiency and scalability, we developed a 2-day, abbreviated, intensive, multicouple group version of CBCT for PTSD (AIM-CBCT for PTSD). Prior work demonstrated that AIMCBCT for PTSDwasassociated with reductions in PTSD and comorbid symptoms in a sample of 24 post-9/11 active duty military or veteran couples who received the treatment in a retreat format over a single weekend. The current study investigated secondary outcomes regarding trauma-related cognitions, psychosocial impairment, and insomnia. For trauma-related cognitions, reductions were nonsignificant and small at 1-month follow-up, ds = -0.14 to -0.32. However, by 3-month follow-up, there were significant, medium effect size reductions in total trauma-related cognitions, d = -0.68, and negative views of self and others, ds =-0.64 and -0.57, respectively, relative to baseline. There was also a nonsignificant, small-to-medium effect-size reduction in self-blame, d = -0.43, p = .053, by 3-month follow-up. For psychosocial impairment, there were significant and medium-to-large and large effect size reductions by 1- and 3-month follow-ups, ds = -0.73 and -0.81, respectively. There were nonsignificant, small effect size reductions in insomnia at both 1- and 3-month follow-ups relative to baseline, ds = -0.30 and -0.34, respectively. These findings suggest that AIM-CBCT for PTSD is associated with reductions inmaladaptive posttraumatic cognitions and psychosocial impairment but that adjunctive interventions may be needed to address insomnia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Family Process is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Associations between depressive symptoms and relationship distress are well-established, but little is known about these linkages among Black couples, or about the role of sociocultural factors in these processes. In this study, we applied a dyadic analytic approach, Actor-Partner Interdependence Modeling (APIM), to address 2 goals: to assess the prospective, bidirectional associations between depressive symptoms and marital satisfaction over a 1-year period in a racially homogenous sample of 168 heterosexual Black couples, and to explore whether these associations were moderated by husbands' and wives' experiences of racial discrimination and/or the centrality of race in their personal identities. Findings revealed that depressive symptoms predicted relative declines in marital satisfaction reported by both self and partner for both husbands and wives. Moderation analyses indicated that, when wives reported greater racial centrality, their depressive symptoms predicted relative declines in husbands' marital satisfaction. In contrast, when wives reported lower racial centrality, their depressive symptoms were not associated with husbands' satisfaction. Together, the findings highlight the interdependence between spouses' mental health and relationship satisfaction and the role of sociocultural factors in these linkages. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rationale: Structural racism is a primary avenue for the perpetuation of racial health disparities. For Black Americans, both historically and contemporarily, the neighborhood context serves as one of the most striking examples of structural racism, with stressful neighborhood contexts contributing to the well-documented inequalities in psychological functioning among this population., Objective: Thus, in this study, we adapted an intersectional-ecological framework to investigate the links between community stress and multiple dimensions of mental-emotional health for Black men and women., Methods: Drawing on cross-sectional data from 842 Black Americans from the Milwaukee area, we tested both objective (Area Deprivation Index; ADI) and subjective (perceived neighborhood disadvantage; PND) indicators of community stress as simultaneous predictors of negative and positive affect and the odds of psychological disorder (depression, anxiety) in multilevel models, examining gender differences in these linkages., Results: Results showed greater objective community stress was related to lower levels of negative affect for both men and women and lower odds of psychological disorder for women specifically. Greater subjective community stress was related to higher levels of negative affect and lower levels of positive affect for both men and women and to higher odds of psychological disorder for women specifically., Conclusions: Findings highlight the complex intersectional nature of the links between community stress and Black Americans' mental-emotional health. Specifically, findings demonstrate the pernicious psychological effects of perceived community stress and allude to Black Americans', particularly women's, active resistance and resilience to objective disadvantage, potentially through investing in social relationships in their neighborhoods., (Copyright © 2024 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.. All rights reserved.)

The current study was designed to investigate the protective effects of gratitude in romantic relationships. Particular attention was given to differentiating the beneficial effects of perceived gratitude (i.e., gratitude from one's partner, or feeling appreciated) versus expressed gratitude (i.e., gratitude to one's partner, or being appreciative) in mitigating the negative effects of ineffective arguing and financial strain on multiple indicators of relationship quality, both concurrently and longitudinally. The sample comprised 316 African American couples with three waves of data spanning approximately 16 months. Results indicated higher levels of perceived gratitude - but not expressed gratitude - weakened the association between relationship stressors and worsened outcomes (i.e., less satisfaction and confidence, more instability) at both between-person and within-person levels. Concurrently, perceived gratitude exhibited protective effects with respect to ineffective arguing and financial strain; longitudinal protective effects were observed only with respect to ineffective arguing. Results highlight the ways in which perceiving gratitude from one's partner, both at a single instance and sustained over many months, can be protective for multiple facets of relationship quality. Collectively, findings underscore the importance of interpersonal gratitude for romantic relationships and its merit for increased attention in research and practice.

Objective: This study replicates and expands Surachman et al.'s (2020) findings documenting socioeconomic status (SES) trajectories across the life course in an independent sample of Black (majority recruited from Milwaukee, WI) and white adults in the United States. We extend this work by examining whether SES trajectories and daily discrimination are independently associated with markers of inflammation., Method: Data were from 215 Black adults (188 recruited from Milwaukee, WI; 27 recruited from across the continental US) and 985 white adults (7 recruited from Milwaukee, WI; 978 recruited from across the continental US) who completed the baseline interview and biomarker assessment during the second wave of the Midlife in the United States (MIDUS) Study (ages = 34-84). SES life course trajectories were examined using latent class analysis based on objective (e.g., income and education) and subjective (e.g., social status and financial strain) indicators of SES. The association between life course SES trajectories and daily discrimination with markers of inflammation (IL-6, CRP, fibrinogen) were examined using multiple linear regression analyses, controlling for demographic, psychological, behavioral, and health-related covariates., Results: Black and white participants showed different patterns of life course SES trajectories. Among Black participants, the trajectories were Objectively Stable Low (45.16%), Downwardly Mobile (18.05%), and Upwardly Mobile (36.79%). Compared to the Upwardly Mobile, the Objectively Stable Low class showed elevated IL-6 after controlling for all covariates. Further, daily discrimination, but not SES trajectories, was significantly associated with CRP and fibrinogen after controlling for demographic, psychological, and behavioral covariates. White participants' experiences of life course SES trajectories were characterized as Objectively Stable Low (7.02%), Subjectively Downward (12.48%), Upwardly Mobile (39.99%), and Stable High (40.51%). Among white participants, SES trajectories, but not daily discrimination, were associated with all markers of inflammation (controlling for age and sex)., Discussion: Consistent with the fundamental cause theory, multiple independent pathways link SES trajectories across the life course and daily discrimination to racial disparities in IL-6, CRP, and fibrinogen., (Copyright © 2021 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)