Alcohol Use Severity among Hispanic Emerging Adults: Examining Intragroup Marginalization, Bicultural Self-Efficacy, and the Role of Gender within a Stress and Coping Framework.

Most research on cultural stressors and alcohol has focused on intercultural stressors. Continuing to exclude intracultural stressors (e.g., intragroup marginalization) from alcohol research will yield a biased understanding of the experiences of Hispanics living in a bicultural society. As we amass more studies on intracultural stressors, research will be needed to identify mutable sociocultural factors that may mitigate the association between intracultural stressors and alcohol. To address these limitations, we examined the association between intragroup marginalization and alcohol use severity and the extent to which gender and bicultural self-efficacy may moderate this association. A convenience sample of 200 Hispanic emerging adults ages 18-25 (men = 101, women = 99) from Arizona (n = 99) and Florida (n = 101) completed a cross-sectional survey. Data were analyzed using hierarchical multiple regression and moderation analyses. Higher intragroup marginalization was associated with higher alcohol use severity. Gender functioned as a moderator whereby intragroup marginalization was associated with higher alcohol use severity among men, but not women. Also, higher social groundedness functioned as a moderator that weakened the association between intragroup marginalization and alcohol use severity. Role repertoire did not function as a moderator. Our findings are significant because they enhance the reliability of the association between intragroup marginalization and alcohol use severity, and the moderating effect of gender in this respective association. This emerging line of research suggests that alcohol interventions targeting Hispanics may have a significant limitation by not accounting for intracultural stressors.

Exposure to ethnic discrimination in social media and symptoms of anxiety and depression among Hispanic emerging adults: Examining the moderating role of gender.

METHOD: Two hundred Hispanic emerging adults from Arizona (n = 99) and Florida (n = 101) completed a cross-sectional survey, and data were analyzed using hierarchical multiple regression and moderation analyses. RESULTS: Higher social media discrimination was associated with higher symptoms of depression and generalized anxiety. Moderation analyses indicated that higher social media discrimination was only associated with symptoms of depression and generalized anxiety among men, but not women. CONCLUSION: This is likely the first study on social media discrimination and mental health among emerging adults; thus, expanding this emerging field of research to a distinct developmental period.

Online racism, psychological distress, and alcohol use among racial minority women and men: A multi-group mediation analysis.

We examined whether alcohol use may be linked to stress associated with online racism as a risky coping behavior among racial minority adults, and potential gender differences across women and men. We tested parallel stress pathways in which we hypothesized that exposure to online racism would be indirectly related to alcohol use severity via general psychological distress and social media-related stress. With data from 395 racial/ethnic minority adults (M age = 34.12; 57% women; 40% Black/African American, 23% Asian/Asian American, 20% Hispanic/Latinx American), we conducted a multi-group path analysis of online racism (Perceived Online Racism Scale) predicting alcohol use severity (Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test) mediated by social media-related stress and psychological distress (Kessler-6) across women and men. Psychological distress was a significant partial mediator for women and men, but social media-related stress was a significant partial mediator only for women. In line with cyberbullying literature noting a greater risk of online victimization for women, racial minority women may be experiencing social media-related stress in addition to general psychological distress associated with online racism that places them at greater risk of alcohol-related coping. Our findings suggest that online racism may be a contemporary digital burden that may drive detrimental health behaviors such as alcohol use and present initial evidence to advance future prevention research. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).