Stress Exposure and Depression in Disadvantaged Women: The Protective Effects of Optimism and Perceived Control

In the present study, the authors predicted that the individual protective factors of optimism and perceived control over acute and chronic stressors would buffer the relations between acute and chronic stress exposure and severity of depression, controlling for household income, in a sample of financially disadvantaged women. Ninety-seven African American women and 97 white women with low incomes were recruited from an obstetric/gynecological clinic of a large urban hospital. They completed the following measures: optimism (Life Orientation Test), a perceived control scale, the Women's Stress Scale, and the Beck Depression Inventory-II.