Racial Discrimination and Private Regard Among Black Early Adolescents: Testing Between- and Within-Person Associations Over Time

Abstract

The current study examined concurrent and longitudinal associations between experiences of racial discrimination and private regard (i.e., feelings about being Black and other Black people) among 346 Black early adolescents who completed four assessments over two years. Between-person (interpersonal) and within-person (intrapersonal) effects were tested to provide a rigorous and comprehensive examination of these associations. There was minimal evidence of significant between-person effects in which youth experiencing varying levels of racial discrimination differed in their private regard. However, at the within-person level, there were significant negative concurrent associations between racial discrimination and private regard, indicating that youths’ positive racial identity was undermined at times when they were encountering higher levels of racial discrimination than they typically did. Results highlight significant intrapersonal links between racial discrimination and private regard and underscore the continued need for interventions to eliminate racial discrimination and to support Black youth experiencing it.

Keywords

Black youth racial discrimination private regard longitudinal within-person associations

Introduction

Black children in the United States face high levels of racial discrimination, with significant consequences for their health and well-being. Nearly all Black youth have reported recent experiences of racial discrimination in several studies (Brody et al., 2006; Lanier et al., 2017; Seaton et al., 2008), and nationally representative data indicate that Black children experience more racial discrimination from other students, teachers, and adults outside of school than do children from other racial and ethnic minority groups (Nagata et al., 2021). These patterns are concerning given that heightened levels of racial discrimination are linked to a wide range of social-emotional (e.g., depression, self-esteem), academic (e.g., achievement, engagement, motivation), and health (e.g., externalizing behaviors, substance use, risky sexual behaviors) variables (Benner et al., 2018).

Experiences of racial discrimination are likely to be associated with other aspects of Black youths’ lives as well. In the current paper, we examine how racial discrimination is associated with Black adolescents’ private regard, the extent to which they feel positively about being Black and their positive views regarding other Black people (Scottham et al., 2008; Sellers et al., 1997). Having a positive racial identity has been identified as a protective factor that can buffer Black youth from the negative effects of racial discrimination (Jones & Neblett, 2017; Neblett et al., 2012), but the possibility that it too may be undermined by racial discrimination has received inadequate attention in the literature. Furthermore, as we describe in more detail in the following sections, methodological concerns with the few existing studies make it so that important questions about associations between racial discrimination and private regard among Black youth remain unanswered. To address these gaps, we used four waves of data over two years from 346 Black early adolescents (mean age = 10.9 years at baseline) to test concurrent and lagged associations between racial discrimination and private regard, considering both between-person (interindividual) and within-person (intraindividual) effects. This design provides a rigorous examination of youths’ racial identity development in response to racial discrimination, and does so during a period in which the development of racial/ethnic regard becomes particularly salient (Hughes et al., 2011).

Theoretical Perspectives on Linkages Between Racial Discrimination and Private Regard

A number of conceptual models argue that experiences of racial discrimination and racial/ethnic identity are likely to be interrelated (Spencer, 1995; Yip, 2018), but different frameworks provide contrasting views as to the nature of the association(s) between racial discrimination and private regard (Del Toro et al., 2021). Some perspectives suggest that racial discrimination and private regard will be positively associated. For example, the rejection-identification model (Branscombe et al., 1999) argues that recognizing discrimination will increase positive identification with one’s in-group (i.e., ↑ racial discrimination → ↑ private regard). Alternatively, the identification-attribution model (Gonzales-Backen et al., 2018) argues that positive racial identity increases awareness and sensitivity to discriminatory experiences (i.e., ↑ private regard → ↑ reported racial discrimination). Thus, both models suggest that higher levels of racial discrimination correspond with higher levels of private regard (i.e., a positive association between racial discrimination and private regard), despite important distinctions between them as to the direction of effect underlying this positive association.

Still other frameworks argue that racial discrimination and private regard will be negatively associated. The concept of the looking glass self (Cooley, 1902) argues that individuals’ views of themselves are a reflection of how others view them. Applied to our research question, this framework suggests that negative interactions with others due to one’s race would result in individuals viewing their race more negatively (also see Erikson, 1968). Likewise, theoretical perspectives on stigma (Hatzenbuehler, 2016; Hatzenbuehler et al., 2013) argue that experiences with stigmatization from other individuals (i.e., interpersonal stigma) or from society more broadly (i.e., structural stigma) can lead stigmatized individuals to internalize and express these negative views (i.e., individual stigma). Concepts such as internalized racism or internalized racial oppression similarly highlight how negative views of one’s race and oneself are a result of societal beliefs and experiences (David et al., 2019; Pyke, 2010), again suggesting that experiences of racial discrimination would be associated with youth developing more negative views regarding their racial identity (i.e., a negative association between racial discrimination and private regard).

Empirical Evidence for Linkages Between Racial Discrimination and Private Regard

Like these theoretical perspectives, empirical findings from studies testing linkages between racial discrimination and private regard have been mixed. Several studies examining cross-sectional, correlational associations between racial discrimination and private regard among Black youth have found no significant associations between them (Seaton & Iida, 2019; Seaton et al., 2011; White-Johnson, 2012), though there is some evidence for significant negative associations among Black college students (Richardson et al., 2015). Longitudinal studies examining concurrent and lagged effects are similarly inconclusive. In an early study, Seaton et al. (2009) examined bidirectional lagged effects between racial discrimination and private regard among 314 Black adolescents over three annual assessments. Overall results indicated no significant cross-sectional correlations between racial discrimination and private regard, and lagged effects from racial discrimination to private regard and from private regard to racial discrimination were also not significant. Exploratory analyses did, however, reveal that among late adolescents (age 17–18 years old at baseline), there was a significant negative lagged effect from racial discrimination to private regard from age 18–19 to age 19–20, though not from age 17–18 to age 18–19. In a more recent study of 387 Black, Dominican American, and Chinese American early adolescents studied annually from sixth to eighth grade, Del Toro et al. (2021) examined concurrent and lagged associations between peer-based ethnic-racial discrimination, adult-based ethnic-racial discrimination, and private regard. There were significant negative cross-sectional correlations between peer-based discrimination and private regard at all three grades, and a significant negative cross-sectional correlation between adult-based discrimination and private regard in eighth grade. In addition to these significant concurrent effects, there were significant negative lagged effects from peer-based discrimination to private regard. There were no significant lagged effects from adult-based ethnic-racial discrimination to private regard or from private regard to either type of discrimination.

These studies provide an initial foundation for understanding associations between racial discrimination and private regard concurrently and over time, but it is important to consider some of their methodological features in weighing their findings. Most importantly, the correlational findings and the longitudinal findings both describe between-person effects, or whether individuals with high levels of racial discrimination report more/less private regard than individuals with lower levels of racial discrimination. This caveat regarding even the longitudinal findings arises because both of the longitudinal studies used the cross-lagged panel model (CLPM; Campbell, 1963). This model is widely used in the developmental literature but has its limitations, most notably its inability to speak to within-person associations (Berry & Willoughby, 2017; Hamaker et al., 2015; Orth et al., 2021). This methodological limitation is important conceptually because associations between racial discrimination and private regard can also be theorized to unfold at the within-person level: for a given individual, experiencing more racial discrimination than they typically do might affect their level of private regard relative to times when they experience less racial discrimination. Notably, between-person associations and within-person associations are not always consistent within the same sample (Berry & Willoughby, 2017; Krauss et al., 2020; Orth et al., 2021), necessitating research designs that specifically test both types of effects.

Indeed, Cheon and Yip (2019) noted the value of within-person longitudinal designs to understand associations between racial discrimination and racial identity, but these designs have yet to be employed in studies of Black youth. Research among other populations, however, reveals the potential value of examining within-person effects in addition to between-person effects when examining links between racial discrimination and private regard. In a study of Latinx (n = 102) and Asian (n = 139) adolescents, Cheon and Yip (2019) examined between- and within-person associations between racial discrimination and private regard (among other dimensions of racial identity). In the between-person analyses, there were no significant lagged associations between racial discrimination and private regard for either group (concurrent associations were not reported). In the within-person analyses, there was a significant negative lagged association from private regard to racial discrimination among Latinx youth, though there were no significant lagged associations in either direction for Asian adolescents (concurrent associations were not reported). In a different study of 181 Mexican-origin adolescent mothers, Zeiders et al. (2019) examined associations between ethnic-racial discrimination and ethnic-racial identity (ERI) affirmation (i.e., positive feelings about their ethnicity), a similar construct to private regard. Results indicated a significant negative between-person association between ethnic-racial discrimination and ERI affirmation, such that adolescents reporting higher levels of discrimination reported lower levels of ERI affirmation relative to adolescents reporting lower levels of discrimination. Additionally, at the within-person level, there was a significant negative lagged association from ethnic-racial discrimination to ERI affirmation, but concurrent effects were not significant (nor were lagged effects from ERI affirmation to racial discrimination). These results indicate that different patterns of association might emerge when between-versus within-person patterns are considered. Nonetheless, the inconsistent results across these studies, along with the lack of data on Black youth specifically, calls for further research investigating these associations.

The Current Study

The current study sought to expand on these findings using four waves of data collected over two years from a study of 346 Black early adolescents living in the rural Southeastern United States. Entrenched oppressive social structures contribute to Black families in this region facing a number of contextual stressors, including interpersonal and institutional racism (Brody et al., 2016b; Cutrona et al., 2016), meaning that many Black youth in the rural South contend with frequent experiences of racial discrimination (Brody et al., 2016a). We conducted a rigorous test of theorized associations between racial discrimination and private regard by first replicating analytic models from earlier work with Black youth and then expanding upon these models with more sophisticated modeling approaches. Specifically, we first used the CLPM to test between-person effects, as in prior work (Del Toro et al., 2021; Seaton et al., 2009). This approach addresses conceptual questions regarding the extent to which youth who differ in their levels of racial discrimination also differ in their private regard. Next, we examined within-person associations using the random intercept cross-lagged panel model (RI-CLPM; Hamaker et al., 2015). This model has been recommended for examining within-person effects (Orth et al., 2021) but has yet, to our knowledge, been used to test these associations among Black youth (for an example with Asian and Latinx youth, see Cheon & Yip, 2019). Its inclusion allows us to address conceptual questions regarding the extent to which relative changes in the degree to which youth experience racial discrimination (relative to their own average) result in changes in their private regard.

In both models, we examined (1) concurrent (cross-sectional) associations between racial discrimination and private regard, (2) lagged associations from racial discrimination to private regard, and (3) lagged associations from private regard to racial discrimination. The existing longitudinal literature among Black youth suggests that the between-person associations would either be non-significant (Seaton et al., 2009) or negative (Del Toro et al., 2021), in which case higher levels of racial discrimination would be associated with lower levels of private regard concurrently and predict lower levels of private regard longitudinally. We did not expect that private regard would predict racial discrimination or that the variables would be positively associated in the between-person analyses. We did not make specific hypotheses regarding the within-person effects given the absence of research on Black youth specifically and inconsistent findings from previous studies examining these types of effects (Cheon & Yip, 2019; Zeiders et al., 2019).

Method

Participants and Procedures

This study used data from the Protecting Strong African American Families (ProSAAF) project, a randomized controlled trial of a family-centered intervention to promote strong couple, coparent, and parent-child relationships in 346 Black American families (full study overview is provided in Barton et al., 2018). The intervention did not specifically aim to reduce racial discrimination or increase private regard, and controlling for intervention condition did not change the pattern of results in the final model (results available upon request from the first author). Accordingly, for parsimony, all participants are included in the analyses and intervention condition was not controlled. This is the first paper using this dataset to examine private regard.

All youth were members of Black families residing in small rural towns and communities in the southeastern U.S., where poverty rates are among the highest in the nation and unemployment rates are above the national average (DeNavas-Walt & Proctor, 2014). Families with a child between the ages of 9 and 14 years were recruited from schools. To be eligible, youth had to be members of a two-parent family and couples had to be in a relationship for 2 years or more, living together, and coparenting an African American child in the targeted age range for at least 1 year. Subject enrollment began in 2013 and continued into 2014. At the start of the study, children’s mean age was 10.9 years (SD = 0.90) and most were 10 or 11 (0.6% were 9, 40.7% were 10, 36.2% were 11, 17.7% were 12, 4.5% were 13, and 0.3% were 14); child age was not significantly associated with racial discrimination or with private regard (Table 1). Fifty-four percent of youth reported their gender as male (n = 186) and the remainder reported their gender as female (46%; n = 160);¹ response options such as nonbinary, genderfluid, or genderqueer (DeChants et al., 2021) were not included in the survey. The majority (51%) of families in the study had incomes below 100% of the federal poverty level and an additional 17% had incomes between 100% and 150% of that level. Median monthly income was $1,375 (SD = $1,375; range $1 to $7,500) for men and $1,220 (SD = $1,440; range $1 to $10,000) for women.

Table 1.

Bivariate Correlations and Descriptive Statistics of Study Variables.

Variable	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9
1. Racial discrimination W1	—
2. Racial discrimination W2	.43^***	—
3. Racial discrimination W3	.34^***	.45^***	—
4. Racial discrimination W4	.27^*	.37^***	.48^***	—
5. Private regard W1	−.18^**	−.13^*	−.03	−.02	—
6. Private regard W2	−.08	−.07	−.02	.02	.22^***	—
7. Private regard W3	−.05	−.13^*	.00	−.05	.26^***	.48^***	—
8. Private regard W4	−.10	.00	.04	−.07	.24^***	.27^***	.30^***	—
9. Child age (years)	.04	−.03	.08	.04	.01	.00	.06	−.03	—
M	13.43	12.99	12.00	11.80	4.21	4.38	4.35	4.26	10.86
SD	4.94	5.20	4.19	4.47	1.09	.89	1.02	1.10	0.89
Observed range	9–30	9–35	9–36	9–36	1–5	1–5	1–5	1–5	9–14
Skewness	1.23	1.76	2.02	2.42	−1.38	−1.62	−1.85	−1.77	.72
Kurtosis	.72	2.95	5.13	7.18	1.06	2.20	2.93	2.39	−.07
N	346	298	304	301	346	298	304	301	334
% missing	0	13.87	12.14	13.01	0	13.87	12.14	13.01	3.47

Note: W1 = Wave 1. W2 = Wave 2. W3 = Wave 3. W4 = Wave 4. *p < .05; **p < .01; ***p < .001.

Project staff visited families’ homes, explained the study in greater detail, and obtained assent and parental permission for child participation. Families completed four waves of assessments during the study; Wave 2 (W2), Wave 3 (W3), and Wave (W4) assessments occurred a mean of 9.4 months, 17.0 months, and 24.5 months respectively after W1. Youth completed the assessments in English using audio computer-assisted self-interview software installed on laptop computers. Of the original sample, 86% provided data at W2, 88% provided data at W3, and 87% provided data at W4. All procedures were approved by the university’s Institutional Review Board.

Measures

All measures in the broader project were adapted based on feedback from focus groups with the target population to increase understanding, improve cultural relevance, and reduce participant burden.

Racial Discrimination

Youths’ experiences of racial discrimination were assessed at each wave using 9 items from the 18-item daily life experiences subscale of the Racism and Life Experiences Scale (Alvarez et al., 2006; Harrell, 1997; Harrell et al., 1997). The scale asks participants to report the frequency with which they experienced several racial stressors over the last 6 months and includes items such as: “Have you been treated rudely or disrespectfully because of your race?” and “Have you been called a name or harassed because of your race?” Responses are on a four-point Likert scale (1 = never, 2 = once or twice, 3 = a few times, 4 = frequently). Scores were summed such that higher scores indicated higher levels of racial discrimination. Alpha was .85 at W1, .90 at W2, .87 at W3, and .90 at W4.

Private Regard

Youths’ reports of private regard were assessed at each wave using 2 items from the 3-item Private Regard subscale of the Multidimensional Inventory of Black Identity-Teen (Scottham et al., 2008). These items were “I am happy that I am Black” and “I feel good about Black people.” The third item from the subscale (“I am proud to be Black”) was not assessed in the broader study. Response options ranged from 1 (Strongly disagree) to 5 (Strongly agree), and scores were averaged such that higher scores indicated more private regard. Alpha for this 2-item scale was .65 at W1, .60 at W2, .68 at W3, and .84 at W4, and the items were correlated .48 at W1, .43 at W2, .52 at W3, and .72 at W4 (all p < .001).

Analytic Plan

Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) was conducted using Mplus version 7.4 (Muthén & Muthén, 1998-2012). Missing data were handled using Full Information Maximum Likelihood (FIML), which computes model parameters with all available information in the variance/covariance matrix. Missing value analysis in SPSS indicated that Little’s MCAR test was not significant (χ²(32) = 34.029, p = .370), justifying the assumption of FIML that missing data are at least missing at random.

To examine between-person concurrent and lagged effects, we used the CLPM, which has been recommended for analyzing between-person effects (Orth et al., 2021). This model includes autoregressive paths (reflecting rank-order stability within the sample), concurrent associations (e.g., whether youth reporting more racial discrimination relative to other youth report different levels of private regard), and bidirectional cross-lagged effects (e.g., whether youth reporting more racial discrimination relative to other youth subsequently report greater changes in their private regard).

To examine within-person effects, we used the RI-CLPM (Hamaker, 2018; Hamaker et al., 2015). The RI-CLPM builds upon the traditional CLPM by examining concurrent and bidirectional lagged associations between two variables, but separates within-person and between-person processes (Hamaker et al., 2015). As such, it has been recommended for analyzing within-person lagged effects (Orth et al., 2021). Within-person effects include autoregressive paths (reflecting within-person stability), concurrent associations (e.g., whether youth reporting more racial discrimination relative to their own average simultaneously report changes in their private regard), and bidirectional lagged effects (e.g., whether individuals reporting more racial discrimination relative to their own average subsequently report changes in their private regard). Unlike the CLPM, the RI-CLPM does not test between-person concurrent or lagged effects, but instead accounts for between-person effects through the inclusion of random intercepts, which reflect overall interindividual differences across the course of the study.

For both the CLPM and the RI-CLPM, we began by estimating unconstrained models in which all paths were free to vary. We then imposed equality constraints on the autoregressive paths, the concurrent paths, and the lagged paths (separately) and examined whether doing so worsened model fit (Orth et al., 2021). We proceeded with the most parsimonious model. Overall model fit was evaluated with commonly used global fit indices: the chi-square test (χ²), the root mean square error of approximation (RMSEA), the comparative fit index (CFI), and standardized root mean square residual (SRMR). A non-significant chi-square, values greater than .95 for CFI, and values smaller than .06 and .08 for RMSEA and SRMR suggest good model fit, and a CFI greater than .90 and RMSEA and SRMR smaller than .10 suggest acceptable model fit (Little, 2013).

Results

Preliminary Analyses

Descriptive statistics and bivariate associations are presented in Table 1. On average, youth reported relatively low levels of racial discrimination (M ∼ 12.6 on a 9-36 scale) and relatively high levels of private regard (M ∼ 4.3 on a 1-5 scale) over the course of the study; scores on private regard were consistent with those of other studies of similarly-aged Black youth (Hughes et al., 2011). There was a significant concurrent (cross-sectional) association between racial discrimination and private regard at W1, r(346) = −.18, p = .001, such that youth reporting higher levels of racial discrimination reported lower levels of private regard than youth reporting lower levels of racial discrimination. No other concurrent associations between racial discrimination and private regard were significant (all p > .05). Most lagged associations between racial discrimination and private regard were not significant; the exceptions were that private regard at W1 was significantly negatively correlated with racial discrimination at W2, r(298) = −.13, p = .02, and racial discrimination at W2 was significantly negatively correlated with private regard at W3, r(288) = −.13, p = .03.

Between-Person Associations Between Racial Discrimination and Private Regard: Results from the CLPM

Compared to the unconstrained CLPM, constraining the autoregressive (stability) paths to be equal over time and the concurrent paths to be equal over time both worsened model fit (Δχ²(4) = 25.012, p = .000 and Δχ²(3) = 11.315, p = .010, respectively), but constraining the lagged paths to be equal did not (Δχ²(4) = 4.087, p = .394). Accordingly, we proceeded with a model in which the autoregressive and concurrent paths were free to vary and the lagged paths were constrained to be equal. The final CLPM model demonstrated acceptable fit for most indices (χ²(16) = 52.190, p < .001; RMSEA = .081; CFI = .898; SRMR = .061) and is depicted in Figure 1.

Figure 1.

Cross-lagged panel model (CLPM) of the relationship between racial discrimination (RD) and private regard (PR) across four waves (denoted in subscripts), with ∼8-month time lags between waves. Squares represent observed variables. All estimates are standardized. Significant associations between racial discrimination and private regard are bolded for emphasis. **p < .01. ***p < .001.

As shown, all autoregressive paths were significant, indicating rank-order stability in racial discrimination and in private regard (e.g., youth experiencing high private regard relative to others at one assessment were likely to be experiencing high private regard relative to others at the next assessment). Regarding the main pathways of interest, there was a significant negative concurrent association between racial discrimination and private regard at W1, indicating that youth reporting higher levels of racial discrimination reported lower levels of private regard than youth reporting lower levels of racial discrimination at the start of the study. No other concurrent associations were significant. Additionally, there were no significant lagged effects from racial discrimination to subsequent private regard or from private regard to subsequent reports of racial discrimination.

Within-Person Associations Between Racial Discrimination and Private Regard: Results from the RI-CLPM

We then turned to examining within-person associations using the RI-CLPM. Compared to the unconstrained RI-CLPM, constraining the autoregressive (stability) paths to be equal over time worsened model fit (Δχ²(4) = 13.488, p = .009), but constraining the concurrent paths to be equal over time (Δχ²(3) = 7.684, p = .053) and the lagged paths to be equal over time (Δχ²(4) = 6.033, p = .197) did not. Accordingly, we proceeded with a model in which the autoregressive paths were free to vary and the respective concurrent and lagged paths were constrained to be equal. This final RI-CLPM model demonstrated good model fit (χ²(16) = 20.452, p = .201; RMSEA = .028; CFI = .988; SRMR = .038).

The final model is depicted in Figure 2. There was not a significant between-person effect, indicating that youth who averaged higher levels of racial discrimination across the study did not differ in private regard from youth who averaged lower levels of racial discrimination across the study. Turning to the within-person effects, all autoregressive paths for racial discrimination were significant, indicating that after youth reported more racial discrimination than they typically did, they also reported elevated levels of racial discrimination (relative to their own average) at the subsequent assessment. There was also one significant autoregressive path for private regard from W2-W3. Turning to the main pathways of interest, within-person concurrent associations were significant and negative, indicating that at times when youth reported more racial discrimination than they typically did, they also reported less private regard than they typically did. There were no significant within-person lagged effects from racial discrimination to subsequent private regard, or from private regard to subsequent reports of racial discrimination.

Figure 2.

Random intercept cross-lagged panel model (RI-CLPM) of the relationship between racial discrimination (RD) and private regard (PR) across four waves (denoted in subscripts), with ∼8-month time lags between waves. Squares represent observed variables and circles represent latent variables. RI represents random intercepts and c represents within-person centered. All estimates are standardized. Significant associations between racial discrimination and private regard are bolded for emphasis. *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001.

Discussion

This study used four waves of data from 346 Black early adolescents to better understand how their experiences of racial discrimination were associated with their private regard, or their own feelings about being Black and other Black people. Addressing this question is important given the high exposure of Black youth to racial discrimination (Nagata et al., 2021), the salience of racial identity development during early adolescence (Hughes et al., 2011), and competing predictions and mixed findings from earlier theoretical and empirical work about whether and how racial discrimination and private regard are associated. We applied sophisticated statistical modeling approaches to consider both between-person and within-person effects, allowing us to understand these associations at different levels. Our findings extend previous work and yield new insights regarding these associations that advance theory and have important practical implications.

Our analysis of between-person associations in the CLPM revealed very few significant associations between racial discrimination and private regard at the interpersonal level. There was a significant negative concurrent association between racial discrimination and private regard at the first wave of the study, but this effect did not replicate at the second, third, or fourth waves. Additionally, there were no significant lagged effects from racial discrimination to private regard or from private regard to racial discrimination at any wave. Similarly, the overall between-person association between racial discrimination and private regard in the RI-CLPM was not significant. These findings are consistent with several studies among Black youth showing no significant cross-sectional correlations between racial discrimination and private regard (Seaton & Iida, 2019; Seaton et al., 2011; White-Johnson, 2012), and with an earlier longitudinal study showing no lagged between-person associations between racial discrimination and private regard among early adolescents (Seaton et al., 2009). Taken together, these results suggest that the extent to which Black youth report high (or low) levels of private regard relative to other Black youth is not strongly dependent on their experiences of racial discrimination. In future work, it will be valuable to understand how Black youth are able to maintain high levels of private regard in the face of racial discrimination, and to identify the factors that serve as more robust predictors of private regard. For example, youth ethnic/racial identity is likely influenced by parents’ ethnic/racial socialization practices (Neblett et al., 2012), with one study of Black adolescents indicating that their private regard was positively associated with cultural pride messages from their parents and negatively associated with their parents’ messages about the presence of racial barriers and difficulties in Black-White race relations (Davis et al., 2017).

Our analysis of within-person associations in the RI-CLPM revealed a different pattern of results at the intrapersonal level. In this model, there were significant negative concurrent within-person associations between racial discrimination and private regard, indicating that at times when youth were experiencing heightened levels of racial discrimination relative to their own average, they also reported lower levels of private regard (and conversely, when reporting lower levels of racial discrimination relative to their own average, youth reported higher levels of private regard). There were, however, no significant within-person lagged effects from racial discrimination to private regard or from private regard to racial discrimination. These within-person findings add to our between-person findings, indicating that there are indeed some linkages between racial discrimination and private regard but that these effects only emerge at the within-person level. Others have similarly found more robust associations between racial discrimination and racial identity at the within-person level when testing these models in other racial and ethnic marginalized populations and have argued that within-person designs are necessary to adequately test longitudinal associations between ethnic/racial identity and ethnic/racial discrimination (Cheon & Yip, 2019; Zeiders et al., 2019). The different results from the CLPM and the RI-CLPM underscore the importance of using analytic models that specifically isolate within-person effects, as the CLPM does not always accurately reflect these linkages (Berry & Willoughby, 2017; Hamaker et al., 2015).

The pattern of negative within-person concurrent associations between racial discrimination and private regard is consistent with concepts such as the looking glass self (Cooley, 1902) and frameworks on stigma (Hatzenbuehler, 2016; Hatzenbuehler et al., 2013) which argue that individuals who have negative experiences with others on the basis of their identity are likely to internalize these experiences. We caution, however, that these effects only emerged concurrently and not longitudinally and thus cannot speak to directionality. It is thus possible that these findings could reflect a process in which how youth feel about being Black and other Black people affects the degree to which they report experiencing racial discrimination. We did not find evidence for this private regard-to-racial discrimination lagged pathway in our sample, though other work with a smaller sample of Latinx adolescents did find evidence for a negative within-person lagged effect from private regard to later reports of racial discrimination (Cheon & Yip, 2019). Given these inconsistent findings, additional research is needed to further test the direction of effect driving the observed within-person concurrent associations between racial discrimination and private regard.

Another dimension along which the pattern of between- and within-person findings diverged was for the stability of private regard. All between-person autoregressive paths were significant, indicating that youth reporting higher private regard relative to other youth continued to report relatively higher private regard 8 months later. This pattern is consistent with other work among Black youth (Seaton et al., 2009) and suggests that there may be a fair degree of rank-order stability in Black youths’ private regard. For the within-person associations, however, only one of the three autoregressive paths was significant. Cheon and Yip (2019) similarly found no significant within-person stability effects for private regard in their study of Asian and Latinx adolescents, despite finding significant between-person stability effects. As in that study, our results indicate that youth who deviate from their own mean private regard at any given point in time are unlikely to show similar deviations at the subsequent time point, suggesting that any changes in private regard (perhaps due to changes in the degree to which youth experience racial discrimination, as we show here) are likely to be relatively short-lived. Future research can further investigate these patterns and their implications for youth development.

The current study had notable methodological strengths, including our large sample of Black youth, multiple waves of assessment, and analysis of between- and within-person concurrent and lagged effects using sophisticated statistical modeling techniques. Nonetheless, study limitations must also be acknowledged. First, our assessment of private regard included only two of the three items from the Private Regard subscale from the MIBI-T (Scottham et al., 2008). The two items that were included assessed both youths’ feelings about being Black and about other Black people, the two dimensions of private regard, but including the third item (which assesses feelings of pride) would provide a more robust assessment of this construct and better align our work with previous studies. We note too that alpha levels for this measure ranged from .60 to .84, which are somewhat lower than ideal though still consistent with previous work using the full three-item subscale (e.g., .75, .66, and .67 in Seaton et al., 2009). Second, it would have been valuable to assess other dimensions of racial identity from the MIBI-T (e.g., centrality, public regard), but these were not included in the broader study and thus could not be examined here. Third, our assessment of racial discrimination did not separate racial discrimination from peers and racial discrimination from adults. Recent work among a similarly-aged sample indicates that effects from peers may be stronger than effects from adults (Del Toro et al., 2021), calling for future work that distinguishes these effects. Fourth, we focused on early adolescents. Previous work indicates that there may be differences in the degree of association between racial discrimination and private regard when comparing early adolescents and late adolescents/young adults (Seaton et al., 2009), which speaks to the more general need to examine these issues in other samples of Black youth at varying developmental stages. Finally, all lagged effects were assessed over 8-month intervals. It will be important for future research to test these effects over a range of time intervals to better assess the longitudinal nature of these associations, particularly in the absence of theory that leads to specific predictions regarding the period over which we would expect these processes to unfold (Hopwood et al., 2022).

Notwithstanding these limitations, our findings have important implications. Previous research has generally shown that racial discrimination is not significantly associated with private regard, but those findings have largely focused on effects at the between-person level. Here we replicated these non-significant between-person effects but showed that a different pattern emerges when these associations are considered at the within-person level, where we saw that private regard was eroded at times when youth were experiencing higher-than-their-typical level of racial discrimination. These findings add to a large body of work linking racial discrimination to poorer social-emotional functioning, academic performance, and health among youth (Benner et al., 2018), and suggest yet another way that high levels of racial discrimination may interfere with healthy development for Black youth—by undermining their own positive feelings about being Black and other Black people. This pattern is especially concerning given that developing a positive racial identity has been called “A fundamental task for ethnic-racial minority youth in the United States” (Del Toro et al., 2021, p. e106). Furthermore, private regard is often identified as a potential buffer of racial discrimination’s harmful effects on health and well-being (Jones & Neblett, 2017; Neblett et al., 2012). The current findings indicate, however, that this resource may be reduced at the very times it is needed most, as higher levels of racial discrimination covaried with lower levels of private regard.

Given these patterns, it is important to support the resilience of Black youth through a range of interventions. There continues to be a need for efforts to eliminate and ameliorate the effects of structural racism, including through social policies and community-based interventions (Slopen & Williams, 2021). Doing so will reduce discrimination, ensure that the onus of dealing with racism does not fall solely on Black youth and families, and promote greater equity. At the same time, in light of continuing marginalization, Black youth would likely benefit from interventions that enhance positive racial identity. Loyd and Williams (2017) review evidence of positive effects from several such programs, concluding that programming for Black youth can promote positive ethnic-racial identity through adopting a culture-specific philosophy that includes racial-ethnic socialization practices and opportunities for meaningful interpersonal interactions with adults and peers. For example, the Strong African American Families program for African American families in the rural South (Brody et al., 2004) included a focus on encouraging racial pride among parents and youth through different ways of handling discrimination, building positive racial pride, and identifying strengths of African American families (Murry et al., 2007). Other work has focused on delivering programs in schools. For example, Jones et al. (2018) provided the Sisters of Nia program (Belgrave et al., 2008) centered around promoting ethnic identity, belonging, and personal and community empowerment among African American girls. These and other prevention programs specifically designed for Black youth (Jones & Neblett, 2016) have the potential to enhance positive racial identity, ultimately fostering youths’ well-being and promoting their healthy development.

Footnotes

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This research was supported by grants R01AG059260 and R01HD069439 to Steven R. H. Beach, grant P50DA051361 from the National Institute on Drug Abuse to Gene H. Brody, and a Harrington Faculty Fellowship from the University of Texas at Austin to Justin A. Lavner. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily reflect the official views of the National Institutes of Health.

ORCID iD

Justin A. Lavner

Note

Author Biographies

Justin Lavner is an Associate Professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of Georgia, United States. He received his Ph.D. in Psychology from the University of California, Los Angeles. His research interests include stigma and contextual stress, individual and family well-being, and prevention programs for marginalized populations.

Sierra Carter is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychology at Georgia State University, United States. She received her Ph.D. in Psychology from the University of Georgia. Her research interests include health inequities, examining the multi-level effects of racism on health across the life course, and holistic intervention and prevention programs for Black Americans.

Ariel Hart is a doctoral student in the Department of Psychology at the University of Georgia, United States. Her research interests include contextual influences on health and well-being across the lifespan, as well as interventions to address health inequities related to social hierarchies.

Olutosin Adesogan is a doctoral student in the Department of Psychology at the University of Georgia, United States. Her research interests include risk and resilience factors across systems that impact health and well-being for Black individuals and families.

Steven Beach is Regents’ Professor in the Department of Psychology and Director of the Center for Family Research at the University of Georgia, United States. He received his Ph.D. in Psychology from the State University of New York at Stony Brook. His research interests include biological embedding of developmental, social, and family experiences; constructed resilience resources; and couple and family processes and interventions.

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