Stress and Health Among Racial/Ethnic Minorities: The Role of Cultural Mismatch

dc.contributor.advisorWalker, Rheeda L.
dc.contributor.committeeMemberZvolensky, Michael J.
dc.contributor.committeeMemberFan, Weihua
dc.contributor.committeeMemberYoshida, Hanako
dc.creatorTalavera, David
dc.date.accessioned2019-09-13T03:22:29Z
dc.date.available2019-09-13T03:22:29Z
dc.date.createdMay 2017
dc.date.issued2017-05
dc.date.submittedMay 2017
dc.date.updated2019-09-13T03:22:29Z
dc.description.abstractStress is a strong risk factor for poor health outcomes and is widely regarded as a main culprit in the alarming rates of health disparities among ethnoracial minorities (Schneiderman, Ironson, and Siegel, 2005). In order to better understand the association between stress and poor health, it is crucial to examine the role of contextual factors (Todorova, et al., 2013) in ethnoracial minority populations. One phenomenon that can potentially shed light on the association between stress and health is that of “cultural mismatch,” which posits that individuals experience psychological distress when their cultural values, customs, and beliefs are incongruent with their environmental context (Halpern-Felsher et al., 1997). Although previous studies have shown that cognitive vulnerabilities mediate the association between stress and health (Manack et al., 2013), no studies to the best of my knowledge have accounted for cultural mismatch in this stress to poor health process. Thus, the current study examined if the extent to which cognitive vulnerability mediates the stress to poor health process is contingent on differing levels of independent self-construal among ethnoracially diverse individuals. The results showed that when predicting health perception, both the overall model (R2= 0.26, df = 5, 462, F = 32.21, p < .0001) and the moderated mediation were significant (b=0.058, SE=0.035, 95% CI [0.002, 0.143]). Further inspection of the interaction showed that the association between stress and cognitive vulnerabilities was stronger for those with lower levels of independent self-construal (b = 3.61, t = 5.22, p < .001) relative to persons who reported higher independent self-construal (b = 1.24, t= 2.64, p < .001).
dc.description.departmentPsychology, Department of
dc.format.digitalOriginborn digital
dc.format.mimetypeapplication/pdf
dc.identifier.urihttps://hdl.handle.net/10657/4504
dc.language.isoeng
dc.rightsThe author of this work is the copyright owner. UH Libraries and the Texas Digital Library have their permission to store and provide access to this work. Further transmission, reproduction, or presentation of this work is prohibited except with permission of the author(s).
dc.subjectCross-cultural mental health
dc.titleStress and Health Among Racial/Ethnic Minorities: The Role of Cultural Mismatch
dc.type.dcmiText
dc.type.genreThesis
thesis.degree.collegeCollege of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences
thesis.degree.departmentPsychology, Department of
thesis.degree.disciplinePsychology, Clinical
thesis.degree.grantorUniversity of Houston
thesis.degree.levelDoctoral
thesis.degree.nameDoctor of Philosophy

Files

Original bundle

Now showing 1 - 1 of 1
Loading...
Thumbnail Image
Name:
TALAVERA-DISSERTATION-2017.pdf
Size:
964.13 KB
Format:
Adobe Portable Document Format

License bundle

Now showing 1 - 1 of 1
No Thumbnail Available
Name:
LICENSE.txt
Size:
1.81 KB
Format:
Plain Text
Description: