Black Youths’ Emotional Reactivity, Discrimination, and Problem Behaviors: Observed Racial Socialization as a Moderator

• In Event: 3-067 - Parenting, Racial Socialization, Emotion Regulation, & Psychosocial Outcomes in African American Youth

Integrative Statement

Nationally representative studies have found that up to 90% of U.S. Black adolescents experience racial discrimination and that such experiences are consistently linked to increased internalizing (e.g., depression, anxiety) and externalizing (e.g., aggression, delinquency) problems (Patcher et al., 2018). Theory suggests that 1) emotional reactivity is an important mechanism by which discrimination gets “under the skin” and impacts maladjustment, and 2) parents’ messages about race (racial socialization) that acknowledge racism and are paired with warmth and supportiveness, may buffer against the harmful effects of discrimination by disrupting the path from discrimination to emotional reactivity (Dunbar et al., 2017).

Thus, we examined whether youths’ submissive emotional reactivity (i.e., anger and frustration) and dominant emotional reactivity (i.e., sadness, embarrassment, shame, and anxiety) in response to discrimination mediate the links between discrimination and internalizing and externalizing problems and whether parenting moderates these links.
Method: 102 teens (Mage = 15.5; 58% girls) and their mothers (Mage = 44) were observed during a task in which dyads discussed what they would do in a hypothetical discriminatory situation involving a teacher. Adaptive parenting was the probability of a dyad exhibiting a pattern of interaction characterized by high levels of warmth, acknowledgment of discrimination, maternal advocacy, and supportiveness of teens ideas (determined by latent profile analyses). Other patterns included high advocacy but low supportiveness and warmth, and finally, low-engaged across the board. Teens reported on the frequency to which they experienced discrimination and their affective responses to discrimination via the Perceived Racism Scale-C (Nyborg, 2001) and their internalizing and externalizing problems via the Youth Self Report (Achenbach & Rescorla, 2001).

Results: The model controls for maternal age, income, education, and marital status. As seen in Figure 1, teens’ greater experiences with discrimination predicted greater internalizing problems, B = 3.27, p < .01. Submissive emotional reactivity mediated this link, Bindirect effect = .64, p < .10, 95% CI [.045, 1.812], such that experiencing discrimination was associated with greater submissive reactivity which subsequently predicted greater internalizing problems.
Teens’ experiences with discrimination predicted greater externalizing problems, B = 6.66, p < .001. Submissive and dominant emotional reactivity jointly mediated this link, Bindirect effect = 1.11, p < .05, 95% CI [.156, 2.719], such that discrimination was associated with greater submissive and dominant reactivity and the joint effect of this reactivity subsequently predicted greater externalizing problems. For boys only, adaptive parenting disrupted the path from discrimination to dominant emotional reactivity such that discrimination was only associated with dominant emotional reactivity when adaptive parenting was low(-1SD), B = .71, p < .001, or moderate (mean), B = .24, p < .05, but had no association when adaptive parenting was high(+1SD), B = -.27, p = .25.

Conclusion: The most novel contribution of this study was that observed racial socialization may serve as a buffer against the affective effects of discrimination. To our knowledge, all other studies examining links between racial socialization and adjustment have used survey data. This study may inform parenting interventions aimed at improving youth adjustment in Black communities.

Authors

• Angel S. Dunbar, University of Maryland
  Presenting Author

• Erica E Coates, University of Maryland
  Non-Presenting Author

• Lydia HaRim Ahn, University of Maryland, College Park
  Non-Presenting Author

• Marisa G. Franco, Georgia State University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Khris-Ann Small, University of Conneticut
  Non-Presenting Author

• Mia A Smith-Bynum, University of Maryland
  Non-Presenting Author