"You're Tearing Me Apart!" Racial/Ethnic Discrimination, Bicultural Identity, and Mental Health.

Drawing from the rejection-identification and rejection-disidentification models (RIM/RDIM), we proposed a model of the association between racial/ethnic discrimination and symptoms of depression and anxiety among racially/ethnically minoritized immigrant individuals. We hypothesized that this relation would be sequentially mediated by discordance in ethnic and national cultural identities and bicultural identity conflict. First- and second-generation racially/ethnically minoritized immigrant college students in the United States (N = 877) completed a battery of self-report measures. We tested two models, one each for depression and anxiety symptoms. Racial/ethnic discrimination was positively associated with discordance in ethnic and national identity, which was positively associated with bicultural identity conflict. These were in turn, positively related to depression and anxiety symptoms. Immigrant individuals who experience racial/ethnic discrimination may perceive higher conflict between their ethnic and national identities. This conflict can in turn be associated with poor mental health. Clinicians should address cultural identity processes when working with racial/ethnic minoritized immigrant clients.

"Now I just need something sweet": Racism, emotional eating, and health among African Americans.

BACKGROUND: The Environmental Affordances Model theorizes that systemic racism disproportionately exposes African Americans in the United States to chronic everyday stressors (e.g., individual racism) while simultaneously shaping the availability of coping resources (e.g., fast food outlets) and engagement in self-regulatory strategies (e.g., emotional eating). Greater engagement in self-regulatory strategies is theorized to preserve mental health while contributing to medical morbidities and mortality. OBJECTIVE: However, few studies have tested the Environmental Affordances Model, limiting our understanding of how the proposed pathways operate in the lives of African Americans. METHODS: In the present study, the associations between systemic racism (institutional racism, cultural racism, neighborhood disadvantage), chronic everyday stressors (exposure to individual racism), emotional eating, and mental (anxiety symptomatology) and physical (self-rated overall physical health) health are assessed in a sample of 751 African Americans aged 18 to 88. RESULTS: The path analysis reveals that institutional and cultural racism are both positively associated with individual racism. Neighborhood disadvantage is inversely associated with individual racism. Individual racism is significantly associated with greater anxiety symptomatology but is unrelated to self-rated overall physical health. Institutional and cultural racism are associated with emotional eating although individual racism and neighborhood disadvantage are not. Moreover, engagement in emotional eating exacerbates, rather than mitigates, the impacts of individual racism on anxiety symptomatology. CONCLUSIONS: We conclude that institutional and cultural racism contribute to individual racism experiences and emotional eating whereas emotional eating exacerbates associations among individual racism and anxiety symptomatology.

The role of aberrant salience in the association between cannabis use frequency and psychotic experiences among racial and ethnic minoritized youth.

Prior studies have shown cannabis use is correlated with psychotic symptoms, but few have explored potential underlying mechanisms. The present study examined whether aberrant salience explains the association between cannabis use frequency and psychotic experiences (PE) while accounting for the mediating role of anxiety in this association. A US urban undergraduate sample of 816 racial and ethnic minorities contributed data used in linear regression models to determine associations between recent (3 months) cannabis use frequency, aberrant salience, anxiety, positive subscale Prodromal Questionnaire (PQ) items, and distressing positive PQ items. Results from hierarchical linear regression and mediation models using Hayes PROCESS application indicated the association between cannabis use frequency and PE was significantly explained by higher aberrant salience and anxiety. Furthermore, anxiety's indirect association with cannabis use frequency and PE significantly occurred through aberrant salience's indirect association with cannabis use frequency and PE (i.e., serial mediation). A similar pattern emerged for distressing PE. We also found earlier age of cannabis use onset (age 12-14) was associated with a higher number of PE and distressing PE and that this was partially explained by higher aberrant salience. Anxiety's indirect association between earlier age of onset and PE/distressing PE only occurred through aberrant salience (i.e., serial mediation). Aberrant salience may be the part of psychosis proneness most directly connected to why earlier initiation of cannabis use is a risk factor for psychotic disorders. This should be explored further in future longitudinal work with clinical high-risk populations and among minoritized youth.

Bicultural identity harmony and American identity are associated with positive mental health in U.S. racial and ethnic minority immigrants.

OBJECTIVES: In this study, we examined the association of ethnic and American identity with depression and anxiety and whether this relation is mediated by Bicultural Identity Integration. METHOD: We recruited racial and ethnic minority immigrant college students (N = 766, Mage = 19.89, 60.4% women, 19.8% Black, 34.2% Hispanic, 36.6% Asian, and 9.4% other) who completed a series of self-report questionnaires. Participants answered questions relating to their ethnic and American identities, the degree to which these identities are compatible (i.e., Bicultural Identity Integration; BII), and presence of depression and anxiety symptoms. We conducted hierarchical linear regressions to test the direct relations between ethnic and American identity, BII, and depression and anxiety symptoms. We used bootstrapping to test the mediating role of BII. RESULTS: Our analyses showed significant negative associations between American identity and BII cultural harmony with depression symptoms. BII cultural harmony was also negatively associated with anxiety symptoms. BII cultural harmony mediated the relations between American identity and both depression and anxiety symptoms. CONCLUSIONS: Perceived compatibility between ethnic and American identities is seemingly important for understanding the relation between national identity and mental health among racial and ethnic minority immigrants. However, longitudinal research designs would help assess causality in the relations found herein. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).