Life stress, adjustment, and religious support in African Americans.

Abstract

The paper sought to extend the work on religious coping in African Americans by exploring the religious moderators of the relationship between stress and adjustment between cultures. Specifically, the goal of the present investigation was to identify whether the buffering effects of religious moderators (i.e., religious coping and religious support) on the relationship between stress and adjustment varied by race. Many studies on African Americans supports that social and individualistic coping styles are respectively predictors of positive and negative adjustment. Results partially supported that religious support in African Americans was a better predictor of adjustment than religious coping. Overall, this was true for alcoholrelated variables, but not for well-being variables. Results provided much stronger support for the predicted moderating effect of religious support on the relationship between stress and adjustment in African Americans. Religious coping failed to moderate this relationship, and no significant buffering effects were found for religious coping or religious support in Whites. This is one of the study's strongest findings. Overall, results were consistent with Agnew's (1992) general strain theory. Alternative explanations for why hypothesis were, or were not supported are offered.