Racial Identity as a Moderator of Daily Exposure and Reactivity to Racial Discrimination

Abstract

The role of racial identity in the stress process was examined in a sample (N = 174) of African American doctoral students and graduates of doctoral programs. Racial discrimination and psychological distress (negative affect, depression, and anxiety) were assessed each day for a period of two weeks. Multilevel random coefficient modeling analyses revealed that unique dimensions of racial identity were associated with greater exposure to daily racial discrimination. Individuals higher in racial centrality were more likely to report daily encounters of racial discrimination than those lower in racial centrality. In contrast, individuals higher in private regard were less likely to report these encounters than those lower in private regard. Finally, the daily association between racial discrimination and psychological distress was stronger for individuals high in racial centrality. Specifically, racial centrality exacerbated the effects of daily racial discrimination on negative affect and depression. Implications of these findings are discussed in terms of the daily experiences of African Americans in doctoral contexts.

Keywords:

• African American
• Racial identity
• Racial discrimination
• Stress

Notes

The internet-based platform used allowed the research team to: (a) routinely access and download completed questionnaires; (b) regulate when participants could access daily questionnaires; (c) resolve logistical field problems immediately (e.g., resend a survey link that was accidentally deleted by a participant); and (d) monitor which participants had completed daily surveys in real-time.

Because the racial classification of Black could refer to all individuals of African decent, we use the term African American throughout this paper unless paraphrasing other sources. Here, Black denotes the phrasing of specific items used in the Multidimensional Inventory of Black Identity (MIBI; Sellers et al., 1997).

We thank Professor Shelly P. Harrell for granting permission to use and modify this measure for daily use.

Given the relatively small number of male participants, we reanalyzed our data with only female participants. Although data from these analyses is not shown, results were statistically similar in direction and significance to findings that included both men and women.