The authors examined a dynamic conceptualization of stress by investigating how economic stress, measured in terms of material loss, alters women's personal and social resources and how these changed resources impact anger and depressive mood. Resource change in women's mastery and social support over 9 months was significantly associated with changes in depressive mood and anger among 714 inner city women. Greater loss of mastery and social support was associated with increased depressive mood and anger. Loss of mastery and social support also mediated the impact of material loss on depressive mood and anger. Resource loss and worsening economic circumstances had more negative impact than resource gain and improving economic circumstances had positive impact, suggesting the greater saliency of loss than gain.

Past research has examined the stress resiliency of individuals high in sense of personal-mastery. However, it has been theorized that within more collectivist cultures, a sense of shared efficacy, which we call communal-mastery, may be more central to people's resiliency in the face of challenging life circumstances. We compared the impact of sense of self-mastery (ie., "I am the key to my success") to that of communal-mastery (ie., "I am successful by virtue of my social attachments") in a prospective study among a group of rural 103 Native American women residing on Indian Reservations in Montana. We found that women high in communal-mastery experienced less increase in depressive mood and anger, especially when faced with high stress circumstances, than women who were low in communal-mastery. In addition, the beneficial impact of communal-mastery was found to be more effective than self-mastery for these women.

Behavioral change reduces risk of HIV infection and development of AIDS. We compared 206 inner-city women who were randomly assigned to a 4-session AIDS-prevention group or to one of two controls, a health-promotion group or a no-intervention group. AIDS-prevention and health-promotion groups provided information, behavioral competency training, and social support. Only the AIDS-prevention group focused on AIDS-specific knowledge and skills. The AIDS-prevention group produced moderate, consistent increases in knowledge and safer sex behaviors in comparison with either the health-promotion or no-intervention group. Self-report and objective changes were sustained 6 months after intervention for both African-American and European-American women.

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Conservation of resources theory (S. E. Hobfoll, 1988, 1999) hypothesizes that loss of resiliency resources can contribute to abused women's posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms, which, in turn, contribute to a further loss of resources, which can make abused women even more vulnerable to future stressors. This study investigates the impact of PTSD symptoms on abused women's future loss of resources-resources that women both value and need to aid their ongoing adjustment. Posttraumatic stress disorder symptoms contributed to future resource loss in abused women, even when controlling for the effects of prior resource loss and depression. Emotional numbing symptoms of PTSD accounted most for women's resource loss. Findings highlight the importance of research and intervention that more directly examines the link between emotions and resource loss.