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Coping With Economic Stress: A Test Of Deterioration And Stress-Suppressing Models, Suzanne Bartholomae, Jonathan Fox

Journal of Financial Therapy

Economic stress exacts many social and psychological costs on the quality of individual and family life. This study examined the relationships between objective economic stressors, personal and social coping resources, and financial strain. Two waves of data from the National Survey of Families and Households (NSFH) were used to examine variations in the cultural utilization patterns of coping resources among whites (n=4,943), blacks (n=999), and Latinos (n=374). Structural equation modeling tested two competing models of the stress process from the life stress paradigm—the deterioration and stress-suppressing models. The stress-suppressing model was minimally supported; only one coping resource, self-efficacy, confirmed the …