Initial elevation bias in subjective reports.

People's reports of their thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are used in many fields of biomedical and social science. When these states have been studied over time, researchers have often observed an unpredicted and puzzling decrease with repeated assessment. When noted, this pattern has been called an "attenuation effect," suggesting that the effect is due to bias in later reports. However, the pattern could also be consistent with an initial elevation bias. We present systematic, experimental investigations of this effect in four field studies (study 1: n = 870; study 2: n = 246; study 3: n = 870; study 4: n = 141). Findings show clear support for an initial elevation bias rather than a later decline. This bias is larger for reports of internal states than for behaviors and for negative mental states and physical symptoms than for positive states. We encourage increased awareness and investigation of this initial elevation bias in all research using subjective reports.

Neighborhood racial discrimination and the development of major depression.

This study examined the impact of neighborhood racial discrimination on the development of major depressive disorder (MDD) in a sample of African American women. Participants were 499 women from Georgia and Iowa with no history of MDD who were followed for 9 to 11 years. Several neighborhood characteristics (community social disorder, community cohesion, and community racism) and individual characteristics (negative life events, financial strain, personal outlook, religious involvement, relationship quality, negative affectivity, and individual experiences of racism) were employed as predictors of whether or not the women met criteria for MDD during this period of time. In a multilevel logistic regression analysis, neighborhood-level discrimination as well as individual-level variables including the number of negative life events, financial strain, and negative affectivity were found to be significant predictors of developing MDD. Analyses of cross-level interactions indicated that the effects of neighborhood-level discrimination were moderated by the quality of individuals' relationships, such that better relationships with others served to lessen the effect of neighborhood discrimination on depression. Implications of these findings for understanding the negative effects of racial discrimination are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record

United and Divided by Stress: How Stressors Differentially Influence Social Support in African American Couples Over Time.

The factors that allow people to be good support providers in relationships are not fully understood. We examined how support providers' stressful experiences (financial strain and racial discrimination) differentially influence their supportiveness, using longitudinal data from two samples of African American couples. Among couples that provided observational data ( N = 163 couples), providers who experienced high chronic financial strain behaved less supportively toward their partners, while those who experienced frequent racial discrimination behaved more supportively over a 2-year period. In a second sample of 213 couples over a 3-year period, support providers who experienced financial strain were perceived by their partners as slightly less supportive, while providers who experienced frequent racial discrimination were perceived by their partners as more supportive. Findings suggest that supportiveness in relationships may be differentially shaped by the specific stresses and strains that partners face.