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How Racial Identity and Worry About Discrimination Impact Coping Responses to Racial Discrimination Among Black American Community Members

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Abstract

Every year, most Black Americans report experiencing racial discrimination, which has been shown to have a variety of negative consequences. Aspects of racial identity, particularly holding a positive perception of one’s racial group (private regard), may buffer the impact of negative experiences including racial discrimination through differential coping strategy use. The current study (1) examined whether level of private regard impacted the type of coping strategies used across various forms of perceived experiences of racial discrimination and (2) tested for indirect pathways from perceived experiences of racial discrimination to different coping strategy use. Adults (N = 297) from the community who self-identified as Black American/African American completed several questionnaires on Amazon’s Mechanical Turk (MTurk). Four-fifths (80%) of participants reported racial discrimination at least once. Racial identity—particularly private regard—was positively associated with active coping strategy use. Furthermore, results from mediation models demonstrated racial identity was an important predictor of coping strategy use, suggesting high private regard has protective effects against racial discrimination. Worry was an especially robust mediator for pathways from racial discrimination to coping strategies. Altogether, results indicate a need for targeted interventions that promote the development of private regard and address worry about racial discrimination among Black American adults.

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Funding

This study received financial support from the University of Maryland, College of Behavioral and Social Sciences, Dean’s Research Initiative, Level 1 Seed Project, and University of Maryland, First-year Innovation and Research Experience Program.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Mental Health, Johns Hopkins University, Bloomberg School of Public Health, 415 N Washington Street, Baltimore, MD, 21231, USA

    Rebecca L. Fix

  2. Department of Psychology, University of Maryland, College Park, MD, USA

    Cristina M. Risco, Spencer T. Fix & Edward M. Bernat

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  1. Rebecca L. Fix
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  2. Cristina M. Risco
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  3. Spencer T. Fix
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  4. Edward M. Bernat
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Contributions

All authors contributed to the study conception and design. Data collection were performed by Cristina M. Risco under the leadership of Edward M. Bernat, and analysis by Rebecca L. Fix. The first draft of the manuscript was written by Rebecca L. Fix, Cristina M. Risco, and Spencer T. Fix, and all authors contributed to the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

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Correspondence to Rebecca L. Fix.

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All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki Declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards. The study was approved by the Institutional Review Board of the University of Maryland—College Park [IRB# 1076694].

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

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Fix, R.L., Risco, C.M., Fix, S.T. et al. How Racial Identity and Worry About Discrimination Impact Coping Responses to Racial Discrimination Among Black American Community Members. J. Racial and Ethnic Health Disparities 9, 641–654 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40615-021-00996-8

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