Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Allyson Topps

Date

2021

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy

Department

School Psychology

Committee Chair

Elizabeth Meisinger

Committee Member

Xu Jiang

Committee Member

Idia Thurston

Committee Member

Kristoffer Berlin

Abstract

Research in the field of positive psychology has expanded knowledge about factors that contribute to well-being. Less attention has focused on the role of ethnic identity in youths reactions to environmental factors and perceived life experiences. This study examined the potential protective effect of ethnic identity in the relation between adolescents normative social stressors (family and peer) and a minority stressor (perceived discrimination) and life satisfaction. Data was collected via self-report measures from 417 adolescents (age range 14 to 18, 63.0% girls) at a public high school in the mid-south region of the United States. Moderation analyses were conducted in the PROCESS macro for SPSS to test three types of moderation models: single moderator, multiple moderator, and moderated moderation. Ethnic identity was the moderator in all models. Ethnicity was added as a second moderator in the last two models. Results showed that ethnic identity and ethnicity moderated the relation between peer stress and life satisfaction in one multiple moderator model. Conditional effect analyses revealed that the effect of peer stress on life satisfaction was significant and decreased across low, moderate, and high levels of ethnic identity for African Americans. For European Americans, the effect of peer stress on life satisfaction was significant and decreased at low and moderate levels of ethnic identity only. No significant moderation effects were found in the models with family stress and stress from perceived discrimination as predictors. The findings suggested that the effect of peer stress on life satisfaction differs between African American and European American adolescents, and ethnic identity demonstrates a protective effect in the context of peer stress for both African American and European American adolescents. Implications and future directions are discussed.

Comments

Data is provided by the student.

Library Comment

Dissertation or thesis originally submitted to ProQuest

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