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Working Harder than Others to Prove Yourself: High-Effort Coping as a Buffer between Teacher-Perpetrated Racial Discrimination and Mental Health among Black American Adolescents

  • Empirical Research
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Abstract

High-effort coping (feeling like one must work harder than others to succeed due to anticipated discrimination) is an understudied concept in adolescence. The current study examined among Black American adolescents surveyed in eighth and 11th grade (N = 630, 49% female) how high-effort coping moderated the relations between teacher-perpetrated racial discrimination and psychological distress across time, and whether the buffering role of high-effort coping varied by adolescent gender and socioeconomic status. Experiencing racial discrimination from teachers in eighth grade was positively related with depressive symptoms, anger, and suicidal ideation in 11th grade. High-effort coping buffered against teacher discrimination for suicidal ideation among low socioeconomic status youth, as well as for anger among high socioeconomic status youth. Findings underscore the harmful influence of racial discrimination on Black American adolescents’ mental health, as well as suggest that among certain subpopulations, high-effort coping may be one psychologically protective resource through which Black American youth retain positive feelings that are undermined by racial discrimination, and thus promote mental well-being.

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Acknowledgements

We appreciate the helpful feedback offered by Aprile Benner and Elma Lorenzo-Blanco in the preparation of this manuscript.

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  1. Department of Human Development and Family Sciences, The University of Texas at Austin, 108 E Dean Keeton St., Stop A2702, Austin, TX, 78712, United States

    Elizabeth Jelsma, Shanting Chen & Fatima Varner

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  1. Elizabeth Jelsma
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  2. Shanting Chen
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  3. Fatima Varner
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Contributions

EJ conceptualized the study, conducted the statistical analysis, and drafted the manuscript. SC participated in the interpretation of the results and drafting the manuscript. FV participated in the conceptualization of the study, interpretation of the results, and drafting the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

Funding

This work was supported by grant, P2CHD042849, Population Research Center, awarded to the Population Research Center at The University of Texas at Austin by the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institutes of Health.

Data Sharing Declaration

The datasets analyzed during the current study are available in the Harvard Dataverse repository, https://hdl.handle.net/1902.1/01066.

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Correspondence to Elizabeth Jelsma.

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Ethical approval was waived by the Office of Research Support (ORS) of the University of Texas at Austin and determined this study did not meet the criteria for human subjects research as defined in the Common Rule (45 CFR 46) or FDA Regulations (21 CFR 56). IRB review and oversight was not required because the activities involved secondary use of de-identified data (no direct or links to identifiers).

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Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.

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Jelsma, E., Chen, S. & Varner, F. Working Harder than Others to Prove Yourself: High-Effort Coping as a Buffer between Teacher-Perpetrated Racial Discrimination and Mental Health among Black American Adolescents. J Youth Adolescence 51, 694–707 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10964-021-01563-4

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