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Recently, social media has become a sociopolitical hotbed for discussions of racism. However, no extant studies have questioned if social media use increases how often African Americans vicariously and/or personally experience discrimination in America. The current study sought to answer this question. By examining the relationships between social media use, general stress, race-related stress, and anger expression, and the mediating role of perceived racism, this study explored if frequent social media use influences young African American adults’: a) perceptions of racism, b) experiences with general and race-related stress, and/or c) expressions of anger. The current study conducted an online survey of 199 young African American adults between the ages of 18-29 using Amazon Mechanical Turk (M-Turk). Results showed Facebook interactive use significantly predicted anticipatory bodily alarm response and anger expression, but not anticipatory race-related stress. Facebook and Twitter use predicted anticipatory race-related stress, anticipatory bodily alarm response, and anger expression. Neither Facebook interactive use or Facebook and Twitter use predicted general stress. However, serial multiple mediation analyses revealed perceived racism and everyday discrimination fully mediated the relationship between Facebook interactive use and anger expression, such that the more young African Americans perceive racism and everyday discrimination via social media the more anger they experience. Findings also revealed perceived racism and everyday discrimination indirectly affected relations between Facebook interactive use and anticipatory bodily alarm response, anticipatory race-related stress, and general stress. Health implications and directions for future research are discussed.

Cultural values provide a system for evaluating situations we encounter; yet, they have seldom been tested in psychosocial oncology. The present research addressed this gap by testing the hypothesis that cancer-related events are stressful because they threaten highly regarded cultural values. As part of a larger study, 417 Western-born Caucasians and 121 Asian-born Chinese immigrants with head and neck cancer (HNC) completed the Individualism-Collectivism Scale (ICS), which measures their endorsement of four cultural syndromes (i.e., vertical-individualism, horizontal-individualism, vertical-collectivism, and horizontal-collectivism). However, the ICS did not tap these constructs identically across these samples. Consequently, I extracted a new common 3-factor measurement model: (a) Camaraderie with Co-workers; (b) Commitment to Family; and (c) Competitiveness. I cross-validated the new model in the HNC samples from which it was derived and in three independent chronic-disease samples. In all cases, results indicated weak invariance. To test the hypothesis, respondents reported the causes of stress (i.e., stressor appraisals) for 24 common HNC-related events. Stressor appraisals reported by a subset of respondents (196 Western-born Caucasians and 44 Chinese immigrants) were categorized based on whether they reflected threats to the cultural values tapped by the new scales. Because only stressor appraisals reflecting threats to commitment to family were identified, I tested the association between commitment to family and the numbers of stressor appraisals reflecting threats to that value. Hierarchical Poisson regression analysis indicated a significant Culture Group x Commitment to Family interaction effect (p = .045): the number of stressor appraisals reflecting threats to commitment to family increased with increasing sense of commitment to family in Chinese immigrants, but not in Western-born Caucasians. Hence, cultural values, in part, explain cross-cultural variation in the experience of cancer stresses. Attention to cultural values can facilitate culturally sensitive patient-centered care by identifying culturally specific causes of stress for targeted psychosocial interventions.

<p dir="ltr">As the US population ages, scientists and policy makers are giving renewed attention to not just increasing the quantity of years lived but improving the quality of those years. Disability, defined as difficulty in performing basic, necessary, socially defined tasks such as bathing and eating, represents a threat to quality of life. Disability has been acknowledged as a major public health issue among policy makers, practitioners, and multidisciplinary researchers for older adults, yet few have investigated the lifetime predictors of this condition. The purpose of this dissertation is to (1) identify how exposure to stressful events across the life course influences disability, (2) examine the role that social relationships play in disability onset in later life, and (3) investigate the appraisal of stress rather than just the discrete occurrence of an event to understand how this subjective experience alters disability status in later life. This dissertation aims to understand how these relationships vary among demographic groups, with two chapters identifying racial, ethnic, and nativity disparities, and one explaining the moderating effect of gender. Drawing from life course theories including the stress process and cumulative inequality, this dissertation uses longitudinal data from the Health and Retirement Study (HRS) to examine the effect of lifetime stress exposure, adult social relationships, and chronic stress appraisal on the occurrence and onset of disability among adults 50 years and older. This dissertation is composed of an introductory chapter, three empirical chapters, and a concluding chapter.</p><p dir="ltr">The first empirical study investigates disparities in stress and disability and further examines how the relationship between stress exposure (both cumulatively and domain-specific) and disability differs by race, ethnicity, and nativity. The second empirical chapter examines the gendered relationship between patterns of social relationship quality in adulthood (identified by high quality, adverse, indifferent, or ambivalent) and the onset of disability in later life. The third empirical chapter builds on the conceptual design of the first chapter, but instead examines chronic stress exposure and chronic stress appraisal and how each has a unique influence on later-life disability for White, Black, US-born Hispanic, and foreign-born Hispanic adults. Overall, findings reveal that higher levels of stress exposure, more detrimental patterns of relationship quality, and appraising stress as upsetting are associated with an earlier onset of disability in later life among adults in the United States. Although empirical chapter 2 did not find any racial, ethnic, and nativity differences among social relationships and disability, negative relationship patterns (i.e., adverse and ambivalent) are associated with disability at a younger age for all older adults. In addition, men who report adverse or indifferent relationships have higher odds of disability than men in high quality relationships. The two chapters examining different conceptualizations of stress exposure and disability find racial, ethnic, and nativity differences. Compared to White adults, cumulative stress burden, particularly childhood traumatic events, are especially harmful for US-born Hispanic adults. Moreover, appraising chronic stressors as more upsetting has a detrimental influence on later-life disability for Black adults, but a protective effect for foreign-born Hispanic adults.</p><p dir="ltr">This dissertation highlights several lifetime antecedents of disability and identifies that it is important to account for demographic factors when addressing interventions to reduce the overall occurrence of disability. Disability is more prevalent among older adults and represents a threat to quality of life. Interventions aimed at reducing exposure to stressful experiences and improving quality of relationships may alleviate some of the noxious effects that disability has on optimal aging.</p>