Social support AFRICAN AMERICAN PSYCHOLOGICAL FUNCTIONING: THE IMPACT OF

(Under the Direction of Velma McBride Murry) This paper examines the extent to which personal resources, personal and social contextual stressors, and social support impact the psychological functioning of African American mothers who were living alone, living with intimate partners or spouses, and living with co-residing grandmothers at the time of data collection. The subsample for the present study, N = 702, was selected from a larger study of 897 African American families participating in Wave 1 of the Family and Community Health Study (FACHS). Results revealed that these mothers were experiencing both anxious and depressive symptoms but not at clinical levels. Further, the predictive utility of correlates also differed as a function of family composition. Personal stressors explained more variance in the depressive symptomatology of solo mothers than partnered mothers. Racism was a significant predictor for solo mothers ’ anxious symptomatology but was not significant in predicting the psychological functioning of partnered mothers. Suggestions for research and clinical interventions are presented.