African American college students and stress: school racial composition, self-esteem and social support

College Student Journal, Dec, 2007 by Feven Negga, Sheldon Applewhite, Ivor Livingston

College students are a very vulnerable group to experience stress, the latter of which is related to a variety of outcomes, such as health and academic performance. However, there is a dearth of research examining African American college students and stress. Further, fewer studies have compared stress for students attending predominately white institutions to those attending historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs).

We first examined the relationships between self-esteem, social support, school racial composition, age and gender on students' stress using the Student Stress Survey. A non-probability sample (N = 344) of predominantly African American students was collected at a Historically Black College & University (HBCU) while 165 students comprised the non-probability sample of white students from a Predominantly White Institution (PWI).

We found that the top five reported sources of stress were: Death of a family member (Intrapersonal Stress) 82%; low grades (Academic Stress) 69%; time management (Academic Stress) 61%; boyfriend/girlfriend problems (Interpersonal Stress) 57%; and missed classes (Academic Stress) 55%. In addition, we found significant correlations between self-esteem, social support and stress for all students except African Americans at PWIs. The study points out the need for colleges and universities to develop stress intervention programs that address stress specifically based on race and school racial composition. Implications and suggestions for further research among African American college students will be discussed.

Introduction and Background

A growing body of research focusing on stress and its implications on the health of individuals has emerged over the last few decades (Edwards, Hershberger, Russell & Markert, 2001). These research studies show that a strong relationship exists between stress and cognitive abilities (Glass & Singer, 1972), and a weakened immune system (Cohen & Herber, 1996). College is a transitional period when young people undergo new experiences, meet new people as well as face opportunities that may compound stress in their lives. Hudd et al. (2000) argue that adolescents and college students face a variety of negative health outcomes including smoking, drinking, experimenting with illegal drugs, suicide ideation and unhealthy lifestyle habits such as poor diet and lack of sleep. This increase in exposure to perceived stress levels has lead to an extension of therapeutic culture not only in the general public, but in college and university campuses nationwide.

Rimer (2004) discusses the importance of addressing stress among college students and examines the strategies taken by colleges and universities to address stress in a holistic manner. For the college student, stress can take on many forms in their daily life. The pressures of maintaining a balance between interpersonal relationships, academic demands, one's own expectations and maintaining personal relationships can be an extremely daunting task. A few examples of the myriad of difficulties that college students face are: academic load, being away from home, family obligations, work, maintaining personal relationships, time management, financial obligations, and becoming acclimated to a new environment.

Stressful events in college can often manifest themselves in poor choices and devastating health and academic consequences. Dealing with stress means understanding the complex process of how the many factors related to the stressor and the individual interact (Phinney, 2003). Thus, college students are in dire need for solutions to deal with the increasing demands on their lives.

As a response to the increasing needs of college students, college and university administrators and health professionals seek ways to improve the mental, physical, emotional, and social health of their students to make their college experience both healthy and memorable. Their search also includes strategies to understand the factors that protect the health of students from stressful events (Skowen et al., 2004). Researchers and health professionals alike have begun to look at stress as an integrative and dynamic process that impacts individuals socially, physically, emotionally, and mentally (Livingston, 1993). Psychosocial variables such as self-esteem and social support have been associated with lower stress levels. Many students begin college unprepared for the challenges of keeping the proper balance between responsibilities, while maintaining a healthy lifestyle in the face of stressors. However, research has shown social support acts as a buffer against high stress levels (Edwards, Hershberger, Russel & Markert, 2001). It has also been demonstrated that high self-esteem is associated with low academic and life stress (Abouserie, 1994). Therefore, when assessing factors of stress, it is important to examine psycho-social variables in addition to demographic and other related variables. Thus, there is a growing need by health services research to incorporate the multi-layered interaction of stress with various research foci, specifically developing approaches to address the growing needs of college students to deal with stress in a healthy manner.