Racial Discrimination and Hazardous Drinking among Black Drinkers: The Role of Social Anxiety in the Minority Stress Model

ABSTRACT

Objective: Black Americans who consume alcohol experience worse alcohol-related outcomes. Thus, identifying psycho-sociocultural factors that play a role in hazardous drinking among Black individuals is vital to informing prevention and treatment efforts to reduce these disparities. Racial discrimination is related to hazardous drinking among Black adults, suggesting that some may drink (and continue to drink despite drinking-related problems) to alleviate negative affect (e.g., depression, anxiety) associated with discrimination. Yet, despite the social nature of both racial discrimination and drinking, no known research has examined the role of social anxiety in the relations among racial discrimination experiences and hazardous drinking. Method: Participants were 164 Black current drinking undergraduates. Results: Racial discrimination was significantly, positively correlated with hazardous drinking, depression, and social anxiety. Discrimination was indirectly related to hazardous drinking via social anxiety, but not depression. Further, discrimination was indirectly related to hazardous drinking via social anxiety alone and via the sequential effects of social anxiety and drinking to cope, but not via coping motives alone. It was also related to hazardous drinking via the sequential effects of depression and drinking to cope but not depression alone. Alternative model testing indicated that social anxiety was not related to hazardous drinking via discrimination, strengthening confidence in directionality of proposed relations. Conclusions: Negative affect (social anxiety, depression) appears to be related to hazardous drinking among those who experience more discrimination due in part to drinking to cope. Social anxiety plays an important role in the relation between discrimination and hazardous drinking among Black adults.

KEYWORDS:

• African American
• Black
• drinking-related problems
• social anxiety
• racial discrimination
• minority stress

Declaration of interest

The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest. The authors alone are responsible for the content and writing of the article.

The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institutes of Health. The contents are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the official views of, nor an endorsement, by HRSA/HHS, or the U.S. Government.

Notes

1 The term Black is used in the current paper to describe people of African ancestry. The term Black is used rather than African American to include individuals who may identify with other national origins (e.g., Bahamian, Jamaican) per the American Psychological Association (2020).

Additional information

Funding

Research reported in this publication was supported by the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities (NIMHD) of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to the University of Houston under Award Number U54MD015946. Dr. Buckner receives funding from the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services’ Graduate Psychology Education (GPE) Program (Grant D40HP33350).