Perceived discrimination and collective fear in Mexican-heritage adolescents

ABSTRACT

The present study aimed to investigate the relationships between perceived discrimination and collective fears in Mexican-heritage adolescents of immigrant families living in the U.S (N = 210) by revalidating a new scale of collective fear (e.g., specific fear in person, specific fear in family, and widespread fear). Confirmatory factor analysis and path analysis was run to test the concurrent validity. The results revealed that perceived discrimination was significantly related to specific fear in person, specific fear in family, and widespread fear. Perceived fear was also significantly associated with mental health.

KEYWORDS:

• Collective fear
• perceived discrimination
• Mexican-heritage adolescents
• mental health
• Latinx communication studies

Acknowledgement

This study was conducted with support from a seed grant received by Sarah Amira de la Garza (Principal Investigator) and YoungJu Shin (Co-PI) in 2017–2018 from the Program for Transborder Communities of the School of Transborder Studies at Arizona State University.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).