Abstract
The links between discrimination and adjustment in U.S. Latino/a immigrant adolescents is an important but understudied phenomenon. We aimed to investigate the longitudinal associations (across 1 year) among discrimination, prosocial behaviors, and depressive symptoms in U.S. Latino immigrant adolescents using two competing models: associations between discrimination and prosocial behaviors via depressive symptoms (mental health strain model), and associations between discrimination and depressive symptoms via prosocial behaviors (prosociality strain model). Participants were 302 Latino/a recent immigrant adolescents (53.3 % boys, M age = 14.51 years at Time 1, SD = .88 years) who completed measures of discrimination, depressive symptoms, and prosocial behaviors at 6-month intervals. The results provided support for both proposed models. The discussion examines the importance of prosocial behaviors in understanding adjustment and effects of discrimination among recently immigrated U.S. Latino adolescents.
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Acknowledgments
The research presented here was supported by National Institute on Drug Abuse grant DA026594 (Seth J. Schwartz and Jennifer B. Unger, Principal Investigators). We would like to thank Maria-Rosa Velazquez, Tatiana Clavijo, Mercedes Prado, Alba Alfonso, Aleyda Marcos, Daisy Ramirez, Lissette Ramirez, and Perlita Carrillo for their hard work conducting assessments and tracking families. We would also like to thank Dr. Judy Arroyo for her guidance and wisdom. Finally, we would like to thank the study families for sharing their experiences with us.
Author Contributions
AND conceived the study, conducted the analyses, and was primarily responsible for writing the manuscript. GC helped with study development and assisted with writing and revising the manuscript. SJS and JBU were the principal investigators on the COPAL project and provided extensive feedback on the data analyses and manuscript drafts. BLZ, ELB, MMM, AO, and BMPW were collaborators on the COPAL team and provided feedback on the manuscript. LB was part of the COPAL research team and provided feedback on the manuscript. CS assisted with manuscript development and provided feedback throughout the process. KL and DS managed the COPAL data collection.
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Davis, A.N., Carlo, G., Schwartz, S.J. et al. The Longitudinal Associations Between Discrimination, Depressive Symptoms, and Prosocial Behaviors in U.S. Latino/a Recent Immigrant Adolescents. J Youth Adolescence 45, 457–470 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10964-015-0394-x
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10964-015-0394-x