As stated earlier, African Americans’ health disadvantage is often attributed in part to reactivity to social stressors (Pearlin et al., 2005; Williams & Mohammed, 2009). Therefore, the stressor-reactivity path in our conceptual model examines how race is associated with family stressor-related changes in daily affect and daily physical health symptoms (Almeida, 2005; Bolger & Zuckerman, 1995). Arguably, the ability to manage stress is complicated by sociocultural context (Everett et al., 2010; Williams, 2002). Research indicates the importance of strong family ties and high levels of interdependence in African American families (Ajrouch et al., 2010; Everett et al., 2010; Goodwin, 2003). Stressful experiences seem to have greater relational consequences for African Americans than for their European American counterparts (Broman, 1993), and African Americans often describe family as their most trusted confidantes (Ajrouch et al., 2010). Therefore, when family relationships are threatened by negative experiences, such as family conflicts or network events, we expect that African Americans’ health and well-being will be more vulnerable to the negative effects of these stressors reflected in greater emotional (i.e., daily affect) and physical reactivity (i.e., physical symptoms) to daily family stressors compared to European Americans (Hypothesis 2).
