Stephanie Torres
Training Track: Clinical
Lab: CASA Lab
Advisor: Catherine DeCarlo Santiago, Ph.D.
Office: Coffey Hall 406
Email: storres@luc.edu
Interests
Stephanie is interested in the role that cultural and contextual factors have on the mental health of Latino youth and families and how this knowledge can inform the tailoring of evidence-based and culturally appropriate community interventions. Further, she is interested in the role of immigration policy and immigration-related stress among Latino communities and social justice implications for mitigating the impact of this stress.
Masters Thesis Title
Risk and Resilience Factors among Low-Income Latino Adolescents: The Impact on Daily Ratings of Mood
Masters Thesis Abstract
Given that Latino adolescents endorse more negative mood when compared to their counterparts of other backgrounds (CDC, 2012), it is especially advantageous to evaluate the impact of risk and resilience factors on mood among this population. The current study uses daily diary methodology to examine the impact that daily economic stress, daily family stress, familism, and ethnic identity commitment and exploration have on daily ratings of mood among 58 (M =13.31, 47% female) low-income Latino adolescents. Results show that daily family stress was strongly linked to daily mood while familism emerged as a salient resilience factor. Contrary to predictions, ethnic identity commitment appeared to be detrimental for youth; furthermore, ethnic identity exploration was found to exacerbate the effect of high economic stress. Context plays an important role in the impact of ethnic identity on mental health and efforts to promote familism and ethnic identity while reducing contextual stressors are necessary.
Masters Thesis Committee
Catherine DeCarlo Santiago and Maryse Richards