Stressors, Support Systems and U.S. Latinx College Student Wellbeing

• In Event: Poster Session 12
  In Poster Session: PS 12 Topic - Race, Ethnicity, Culture, Context

Abstract

The Latinx population (Santos, 2017; Scharrón-del Río & Aja, 2020) is among the fastest growing ethnic group in the United States (Flores, 2017) and this growth will soon be reflected in college enrollment. College is a time filled with many stressors from adapting to academic challenges, new peer groups, and added social responsibilities. For Latinxs, this also means continued involvement with, and assimilation to, the dominant culture. The stress brought on by these changes have been linked to adjustment (Lee et al., 2019). However, we know little regarding support processes (e.g. parent and friend support) that might help enhance adjustment. The present study examines the mediating role of parent and friend support in the links between academic, social, and acculturative stress and both self-esteem and prosocial behaviors in Latinx college students.
Participants included 126 (18–25-year-olds; M=21.48 years;SD=2.03;66.7% female) Latinx college students from schools in Texas and California. Participants were selected from a larger dataset if they self-identified as “Hispanic/Latino” (see Table 1 for correlations). The College Stress Inventory (Solberg et al., 1993) was used to assess the two types of stress: academic and social stress. A short form of the Social, Attitudinal, Familial and Environmental Acculturative Stress Scale (Mena et al., 1987) assessed students’ level of acculturative stress. The support subscale of the Network of Relationships Inventory (Furman & Buhrmester, 1992) assessed parent and friend support. The altruistic, compliant, dire, and emotional prosocial behavior subscales from the Prosocial Tendencies Measure (Carlo & Randall, 2002) were assessed. Compliant, dire, and emotional prosocial behaviors were used to create a latent variable of prosocial behavior distinct from altruistic behaviors.
Using path analysis, a path model was estimated in which parent and friend support were specified as mediators of the associations from academic, social, and acculturative stress to self-esteem, altruistic prosocial behavior, and the composite prosocial behavior. Correlations were included among the stress variables, and between the support variables.
A multigroup comparison of males and females indicated the better fitting model included unconstrained paths between groups (see Figure 1). Results show that more academic stress experienced by Latina women, but not Latino men, is related to more compliant/dire/emotional prosocial behavior via friend support. Also, for Latinas, more acculturative stress was directly related to more compliant/dire/emotional prosocial behavior, but lower self-esteem. Whereas for Latinos only, more acculturative stress and more parent support was related to less altruistic behavior. However, more parent support for Latinos also related to more compliant/dire/emotional prosocial behavior.
Given that many Latinx students are the first in their family to attend college, friends might be deemed more helpful than parents for support with their academic stress. Interestingly, exposure to higher levels of acculturative stress seemed to be directly negatively linked to self-esteem (for Latinas) and altruistic prosocial behaviors (for Latinos). In contrast, acculturative stress was positively related to compliant/dire/emotional prosocial behaviors among Latinos. Discussion will focus on the adjustment implications of exposure to distinct forms of stressors and the protective role of support and community among Latino versus Latina college students.

Authors

• Sonia E. Girón, Ohio State University
  Presenting Author

• Gustavo Carlo, University of California, Irvine
  Non-Presenting Author