The Associations of Racial Discrimination and Neighborhood Disadvantage With World Assumptions Among Black,Latine,and Asian Young Adults

Abstract

The theory of shattered assumptions proposes that experiencing traumatic events can change how people view themselves and the world. Most adults experience a traumatic event during their lifetime, and some subsequently develop post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). However, the current conceptualization of trauma (i.e., Criterion A PTSD) may be too narrow to adequately capture the range of potentially traumatizing events that People of Color experience, including racial discrimination and neighborhood disadvantage. This study investigated the association of racial discrimination and neighborhood disadvantage with core beliefs about the world being safe and predictable (i.e., world assumptions) among a sample of Black, Latine, and Asian young adults. Multi-step analyses of covariance tested associations between racial discrimination and neighborhood disadvantage with world assumptions and whether these held in the context of other traumatic exposures. Results indicated that racial discrimination negatively impacted world assumptions among Asian young adults only and this effect remained in the context of trauma. In addition, low neighborhood support negatively impacted world assumptions across all racial groups and neighborhood violence negatively impacted world assumptions among Latine young adults only; however, this effect did not remain in the context of trauma. This study indicates it is worthwhile to consider other adverse events in the conceptualization of trauma, such as racial discrimination and neighborhood disadvantage, that may impact world assumptions and contribute to subsequent post-trauma psychopathology.

Keywords

community violence cultural contexts hate crimes mental health and violence ethnicity PTSD

Introduction

National epidemiological data suggest that between 51% and 77% of adults have experienced a traumatic event in their lifetime (Smith & Cottler, 2018). Experiencing a traumatic event may result in changes in beliefs about the safety of the world (i.e., world assumptions), which has been associated with risk for psychopathology, including post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD; Bruggen et al., 2018; Janoff-Bulman, 1985; Schuler & Boals, 2016). The process of adjusting beliefs after a traumatic event has been described in the theory of shattered assumptions in which a traumatic event disturbs a person’s positive beliefs about the self and the world (Janoff-Bulman, 1985). World assumptions theory suggests that the development of PTSD is influenced by the integration of the new information learned from the traumatic event with existing knowledge about the world (Janoff-Bulman, 1989). This theory purports that some people may respond to a traumatic event by adjusting their beliefs about the safety and predictability of the world. Longitudinal data support that the exposure to traumatic events negatively impacts world assumptions (Schuler & Boals, 2016). Given the strong link between traumatic events, world assumptions, and psychopathology (Anders et al., 2014; Edmondson et al., 2011; Lilly et al., 2015), it is critical to expand our understanding of traumatic events and include other adverse experiences that may impact world assumptions including factors related to racism. Stressors prevalent among People of Color (POC) that may be experienced as traumatic include racial discrimination and neighborhood disadvantage.

Increasingly, scholars have acknowledged that the current conceptualization of trauma (i.e., Criterion A for PTSD, which requires experiencing, witnessing, or dealing with a highly stressful event that involves actual death, threatened death, or serious injury to themselves or someone else; American Psychiatric Association, 2013) may be too narrow to adequately capture the range of potentially traumatizing events, including traumatizing experiences of racism (Holmes et al., 2016; Williams et al., 2018). Racial discrimination is the most commonly used indicator of interpersonal racism in research (Williams et al., 2019). There is considerable evidence demonstrating the deleterious impact of racial discrimination on the well-being of POC, generally (Carter et al., 2019), and the association between racial discrimination and PTSD, more specifically (Cheng & Mallinckrodt, 2015; Dale & Safren, 2019; Flores et al., 2010; Kirkinis et al., 2018; Loo et al., 2001; Pieterse et al., 2010; Torres & Taknint, 2015; Watson et al., 2016; Wei et al., 2012). Some studies have even demonstrated that racial discrimination is predictive of PTSD above and beyond exposure to Criterion A traumatic events (Bird et al., 2021; Carter et al., 2019; Loo et al., 2001).

In understanding racial discrimination as a potentially traumatizing experience (Carter et al., 2019; Holmes et al., 2016; Williams et al., 2018), it would also be important to test whether racial discrimination is associated with world assumptions in a similar manner as events that fall under the definition of trauma in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5). Research has demonstrated that exposure to racial discrimination is, in fact, associated with beliefs in an unjust world (Dale & Safren, 2019; Liang & Borders, 2012; Liang & Molenaar, 2016; Schaafsma, 2013) as well as decreased sense of control (Ben et al., 2014; Macedo et al., 2019; Moradi & Hasan, 2004; Moradi & Risco, 2006; Peterson et al., 2020). A strength of this body of literature is its inclusion of a range of populations with varying racial backgrounds (e.g., Black women living with HIV, Arab American and Latine community members, Aboriginal pregnant women, undergraduate Students of Color; Dale & Safren, 2019; Macedo et al., 2019; Moradi & Hasan, 2004; Moradi & Risco, 2006; Liang & Molenaar, 2016). However, most studies examine the association been racial discrimination and world assumptions within a single racial group (e.g., Dale & Safren, 2019; Moradi & Hasan. 2004; Moradi & Risco, 2006) or among Participants of Color more broadly, without considering the possible distinctions between racial/ethnic groups (e.g., Liang & Borders, 2012; Liang & Molenaar, 2016).

Neighborhood disadvantage is another adverse experience that is prevalent among POC and has the potential to negatively impact world assumptions but has yet to be investigated. Given structural racism, POC are more likely to live in disadvantaged neighborhoods (Riley, 2018). Neighborhood disadvantage can involve experiencing low levels of neighborhood cohesion or support and high rates of neighborhood violence, crime, drug deals, and poverty and may be experienced as traumatic. For example, results from a recent longitudinal study suggest that neighborhood safety, which was reported at a higher rate in Black relative to White communities, predicted post-traumatic stress symptoms (Andrews et al., 2019). Consistent with world assumptions theory, it is possible that living in poverty or an unsafe neighborhood contributed to inconsistencies between their experience and their beliefs about the self and sense of safety in the world, thus resulting in post-traumatic stress symptoms. However, research examining the association between neighborhood disadvantage and world assumptions is limited. One study, using the same data as the current study, examined the profiles of adversity including neighborhood disadvantage and found that profiles with very high neighborhood adversity scored lowest on the World Assumptions Questionnaire (WAQ; Kaler, 2009) subscales: controllability of events and trustworthiness and goodness of people (Woerner et al., 2020). These findings suggest that neighborhood disadvantage may be closely linked to these two aspects of world assumptions. However, it remains to be known whether these associations differ when exclusively examining POC, who may also experience racial discrimination. Although prior research has examined neighborhood disadvantage in the form of neighborhood safety or violence (Andrews et al., 2019), no study has examined whether the association with world assumptions differ by form of low neighborhood disadvantage (i.e., safety or support).

In summary, there is a need to expand how we think of trauma to include adverse experiences related to racism like racial discrimination and neighborhood disadvantage and explore how they might also impact world assumptions. Additional research is needed to (a) examine the association of racial discrimination and neighborhood disadvantage with world assumptions separately among multiple Groups of Color to capture potential between-group differences, (b) utilize a measure that allows for investigation of the multiple facets of world assumptions, and (c) assess the impact of racial discrimination and neighborhood disadvantage on world assumptions above and beyond exposure to events that fall under the DSM-5 definition of trauma, as has been done in studying the impact of racial discrimination on PTSD (e.g., Loo et al., 2001). Thus, the objective of the current study was to identify the possible associations of racial discrimination and neighborhood disadvantage with world assumptions among Black, Latine¹, and Asian young adults and whether these associations were independent of other trauma exposure. We hypothesized that racial discrimination and neighborhood disadvantage would be associated with more negative world assumptions across all groups. Whether these associations held when accounting for other trauma exposure was exploratory.

Methods

Participants

The sample consisted of 1,313 undergraduate students at a single university who participated in an online survey of stress, personality, substance use, and mental health between 2015 and 2017. The sample was representative of the student population, and for the purposes of this study, it was restricted to individuals 18–25 years of age who identified as non-Latine Black (n = 291), Latine (n = 152), or non-Latine Asian (n = 207). Notably, all participants who identified as American Indian (n = 4) or multiracial (n = 32) also identified as Latine and so were categorized as Latine. The university Institutional Review Board approved this study prior to data collection. Participants provided consent and were compensated one research credit. Additional sample characteristics are shown in Table 1.

Table 1.

Descriptive Characteristics of the Sample by Racial/Ethnic Group (N = 650).

	Black (n = 291)	Latine (n = 152)	Asian (n = 207)
	Mean (SD) or %	Mean (SD) or %	Mean (SD) or %
Age	19.40 (1.40)	19.44 (1.62)	19.48 (1.60)
Female*	82.13%	74.35%	71.84%
Racial discrimination*	80.41%	65.79%	66.67%
Childhood neighborhood disadvantage
Low neighborhood support	7.31 (3.00)	7.62 (2.95)	7.12 (2.73)
Low neighborhood safety	5.31 (2.34)	5.19 (2.31)	5.00 (2.17)
World assumptions
Controllability of events	19.21 (3.80)	19.08 (3.16)	19.31 (3.57)
Comprehensibility and predictability of people	14.25 (4.32)	14.69 (3.62)	14.69 (4.40)
Safety and vulnerability	14.97 (4.06)	15.38 (3.88)	14.90 (3.84)
Trustworthiness and goodness of people	20.16 (4.38)	20.43 (3.99)	20.60 (4.48)
Trauma
Assaultive	34.36%	44.08%	39.13%
Non-assaultive	58.42%	63.16%	54.59%

Note. Higher scores meant less safety on the neighborhood safety measure. Assaultive and non-assaultive trauma types were assessed using the Lifetime Events Checklist. SD = standard deviation.

Indicates significant differences (p < .05) between groups.

Measures

Demographics

Demographic characteristics including age, sex, race, and ethnicity were assessed for each participant. Following the National Epidemiologic Survey on Alcohol Related Conditions approach to creating a single race and ethnicity (referred to here as racial/ethnic group) variable, participants who endorsed “Hispanic” ethnicity were categorized as Latine regardless of race, and non-Latine Asian and Black people were categorized as Asian and Black, respectively.

Racial discrimination

The Everyday Discrimination Scale (EDS; Williams et al., 1997) is a measure of discrimination attributed to one or more social identities including race, gender, ancestry, religion, sexual orientation, or education/income. Participants were assessed on nine discrimination experiences (e.g., “You are treated with less respect than other people are”) and reported the frequency of these experiences (1 = “almost every day” to 5 = “less than once a year”), and their perceived reasons for these experiences (e.g., “due to my race”). Participants were instructed to endorse as many attributions as applied for each situation, so the EDS does not generate separate scores for each form of discrimination. For the purposes of this paper, we only included discrimination experiences attributed to race. A dichotomous variable was created, indicating any endorsement of racial discrimination.

World assumptions

The WAQ (Kaler, 2009) consists of 22 items and four factors that assess assumptions about the world. The four subscales include the following: controllability of events (e.g., “I don’t feel in control of events that happen to me”; α = .68), comprehensibility and predictability of people (e.g., “People often behave in unpredictable ways”; α = .76), trustworthiness and goodness of people (e.g., “Most people can be trusted”; α = .72), and safety and vulnerability (e.g., “Terrible things might happen to me”; α = .62). The response options varied from 1 = “strongly agree” to 6 = “strongly disagree.” Scores were summed with higher scores indicating more negative beliefs about the world.

Neighborhood disadvantage

Neighborhood disadvantage was measured using the Neighborhood Assessment (Jackson et al., 2004), in reference to their childhood neighborhood. This measure consists of seven items assessing the safety of the neighborhood in which the participants were raised (e.g., “People often got mugged or attacked in my neighborhood”—reverse scored). Response options ranged from 1 (“very true”) to 4 (“not at all true”). The responses were summed with higher scores indicating increased vulnerability of the neighborhood. For the purposes of the current study, we used two subscales (i.e., low neighborhood support [α = .90]; neighborhood violence [α = .82]) produced by an exploratory factor analysis (see Supplemental Table 1 for additional details).

Assaultive and non-assaultive trauma

History of trauma was assessed using the Lifetime Events Checklist (Gray et al., 2004). Each variable was coded dichotomously as either present or absent. Assaultive trauma was coded as present if a participant endorsed experiencing physical assault, assault with a weapon, sexual assault, other unwanted sexual experiences, or being abducted. Non-assaultive trauma was coded as present if a participant endorsed experiencing a fire, transportation accident, serious accident, exposure to a toxic substance, or life-threatening illness.

Analytic Approach

All analyses were conducted using SAS software (SAS 9.4; SAS Institute Inc, Cary, NC, USA). Chi-square tests for categorical variables and analysis of covariance for continuous variables were used to examine differences between racial/ethnic group on demographic, trauma, racial discrimination, neighborhood disadvantage, and world assumptions variables (see Table 1). Pearson’s r for continuous variables and Point-Biserial correlations for dichotomous variables were used to examine bivariate associations between trauma, racial discrimination, neighborhood disadvantage, and world assumptions by racial/ethnic group (Table 2). The association between racial discrimination (Table 3) and neighborhood disadvantage (Table 4) with world assumptions was examined in separate models adjusting for covariates (i.e., age and sex) using a multi-step process. For the racial discrimination models, the first step (Model 1) was to test the association between racial discrimination and world assumptions after adjusting for age and sex. The second step (Model 2) was to determine whether the association between racial discrimination and world assumptions was robust in the context of assaultive and non-assaultive trauma in adjusted models. For neighborhood disadvantage, the first step (Model 1) involved testing the association between each neighborhood disadvantage factor and world assumptions in separate adjusted models. The second step (Model 2) involved testing for the interaction between the two neighborhood disadvantage factors in relation to world assumptions. Finally, the third step (Model 3) was to determine whether the association between neighborhood disadvantage and world assumptions was robust in the context of trauma, that is, whether neighborhood disadvantage was independently associated after accounting for overlap with trauma exposures. In an effort to derive the most parsimonious model, the neighborhood disadvantage interaction term was only included in the final model (Model 3) if it was significant in Model 2. The Bonferroni–Holm method (Holm, 1979), which estimates a new p value after accounting for the number of tests conducted, was used to account for multiple comparisons.

Table 2.

Bivariate Pearson and Point-Biserial Correlations Between Trauma Indicators and the Four Subscales of the WAQ by Racial/Ethnic Group.

	Controllability of Events	Predictability of People	Safety and Vulnerability	Trustworthiness and Goodness of People
Black
Assaultive trauma	−0.07	0.05	−0.17	−0.16
Non-assaultive trauma	−0.10	−0.01	−0.15	−0.02
Racial discrimination	−0.04	−0.02	−0.12	−0.10
Low neighborhood support	−.08	−.02	−.14	−.15
Low neighborhood safety	−.06	.01	.04	−.06
Latine
Assaultive trauma	−0.14	0.02	−0.12	−0.22
Non-assaultive trauma	−0.06	−0.12	−0.16	−0.15
Racial discrimination	−0.01	−0.12	−0.04	−0.03
Low neighborhood support	.01	.08	−.13	−.18
Low neighborhood safety	−.11	−.11	−.21	−.16
Asian
Assaultive trauma	0.05	0.04	−0.06	0.02
Non-assaultive trauma	0.10	<0.01	−0.11	0.04
Racial discrimination	−0.18	−0.06	−0.10	−0.15
Low neighborhood support	−.16	.12	.11	−.31
Low neighborhood safety	.01	.08	.07	−.01

Note. Bold = p < .05. WAQ = World Assumptions Questionnaire.

Table 3.

Adjusted Models Examining the Association Between Racial Discrimination and Controllability of Events Among Asian Young Adults.

	Model 1	Model 2
Controllability of events
Asian
Racial discrimination	F _1,197 = 6.74, p = .01	F _1,197 = 8.88, p = .003*
Assaultive trauma		F _1,197 = .97, p = .33
Non-assaultive trauma		F _1,197 = 2.88, p = .09

Note. Bold = statistically significant at p < .05. * = remained statistically significant (p < .05) after accounting for multiple comparisons. All models were adjusted for age and sex.

Table 4.

Adjusted Models Examining Neighborhood Disadvantage and World Assumptions.

	Model 1	Model 2	Model 3
Controllability of events
Asian
Low neighborhood support	F _1,197 = 5.20, p = .02	F_1,197 = .58, p = .45	F _1,197 = 6.03, p = .01
Neighborhood violence	F_1,197 = .89, p = .35	F_1,197 = .21, p = .64	F_1,197 = 1.04, p = .31
Neighborhood support*violence		F_1,197 = .03, p = .87	—
Assaultive trauma			F_1,197 = .94, p = .33
Non-assaultive trauma			F_1,197 = 1.71, p = .19
Predictability of people
Asian
Low neighborhood support	F_1,197 = 1.78, p = .18	F _1,197 = 4.56, p = .03	F _1,197 = 4.39, p = .04
Neighborhood violence	F_1,197 = .24, p = .63	F_1,197 = 3.27, p = .07	F_1,197 = 3.25, p = .07
Neighborhood support*violence		F_1,197 = 3.04, p = .08	—
Assaultive trauma			F_1,197 = .09, p = .77
Non-assaultive trauma			F_1,197 = .06, p = .80
Safety and vulnerability
Black
Low neighborhood support	F _1,276 = 7.43, p = .01	F_1,276 = .49, p = .48	F _1,276 = 5.85, p = .02
Neighborhood violence	F_1,276 = 2.90, p = .09	F_1,276 = 1.30, p = .25	F_1,276 = 2.23, p = .14
Neighborhood support*violence		F_1,276 = .28, p = .59	—
Assaultive trauma			F _1,276 = 4.74, p = .03
Non-assaultive trauma			F_1,276 = 1.73, p = .19
Latine
Low neighborhood support	F_1,147 = 1.05, p = .31	F_1,147 = 3.68, p = .06	F_1,147 = 2.02, p = .16
Neighborhood violence	F _1,147 = 4.24, p = .04	F _1,147 = 4.82, p = .03	F_1,147 = 2.19, p = .14
Neighborhood support*violence		F_1,147 = 2.72, p = .10	—
Assaultive trauma			F_1,147 = .31, p = .58
Non-assaultive trauma			F_1,147 = 3.18, p = .08
Trustworthiness and goodness of people
Black
Low neighborhood support	F _1,276 = 4.57, p = .03	F_1,276 = .99, p = .32	F_1,276 = 3.58, p = .059
Neighborhood violence	F_1,276 = .01, p = .93	F_1,276 = .01, p = .92	F_1,276 = .03, p = .87
Neighborhood support*violence		F_1,276 = .01, p = .94	—
Assaultive trauma			F _1,273 = 7.18, p = .01
Non-assaultive trauma			F_1,273 = .11, p = .74
Latine
Low neighborhood support	F_1,147 = 2.62, p = .11	F_1,147 = .55, p = .46	F _1,147 = 3.99, p = .048
Neighborhood violence	F_1,147 = 2.22, p = .14	F_1,147 = .33, p = .57	F_1,147 = .39, p = .54
Neighborhood support*violence		F_1,147 = .02, p = .89	—
Assaultive trauma			F_1,147 = 3.72, p = .06
Non-assaultive trauma			F_1,147 = 2.85, p = .10
Asian
Low neighborhood support	F _1,197 = 21.86, p < .0001	F _1,197 = 4.10, p = .04	F _1,197 = 23.34, p < .0001*
Neighborhood violence	F_1,197 = 2.60, p = .11	F_1,197 = .13, p = .72	F_1,197 = 2.52, p = .11
Neighborhood support*violence		F_1,197 = .03, p = .86	—
Assaultive trauma			F_1,197 = 1.58, p = .22
Non-assaultive trauma			F_1,197 = .07, p = .80

Note. Bold = statistically significant at p < .05. * = remained statistically significant (p < .05) after accounting for multiple comparisons. All models were adjusted for age and sex.

Results

A total of 650 participants were included in this analysis (45% Black, 32% Asian, 23% Latine; mean age = 19.44, standard deviation = 1.54). In addition, Black participants were more likely to endorse racial discrimination relative to Latine and Asian participants. There were no differences in neighborhood disadvantage, world assumptions, or trauma between racial/ethnic groups. Table 1 provides descriptive data on the sample.

Bivariate Associations between Racial Discrimination, Neighborhood, and World Assumptions (Table 2)

Black young adults

Endorsing assaultive trauma was associated with lower scores on the Safety and Vulnerability and Trustworthiness of People subscales of the WAQ. Similarly, endorsing non-assaultive trauma was associated with lower scores on the Safety and Vulnerability subscale. Low neighborhood support was associated with lower scores on the Safety and Vulnerability and Trustworthiness of People subscales. Neither racial discrimination nor neighborhood violence was associated with world assumptions.

Latine young adults

Endorsing assaultive trauma was associated with lower scores on the Trustworthiness and Goodness of people subscale. Non-assaultive trauma was associated with lower scores on the Safety and Vulnerability subscale of the WAQ. Low neighborhood support was associated with lower scores on the Trustworthiness of People subscale. Neighborhood violence was associated with lower scores on the Safety and Vulnerability and Trustworthiness of People subscales. Racial discrimination was not associated with world assumptions.

Asian young adults

Racial discrimination was associated with lower scores on the Controllability of Events and Trustworthiness and Goodness of People subscales of the WAQ. Low neighborhood support was associated with lower scores on the Controllability of Events and the Trustworthiness and Goodness of People subscales. Assaultive trauma, non-assaultive trauma, and neighborhood violence were not associated with world assumptions.

Adjusted Models Examining Racial Discrimination and World Assumptions

The only statistically significant association found between racial discrimination and world assumptions when adjusting for age and sex was with Controllability of Events among Asian young adults. Specifically, Asian young adults who endorsed racial discrimination (least square means [LSM] = 18.94, SE = .34) had lower scores on the Controllability of Events subscale than Asian young adults who did not endorse racial discrimination (LSM = 20.57, SE = .46), and this effect was robust in the context of assaultive and non-assaultive trauma (p = .003; see Table 3). Racial discrimination was not associated with world assumptions in the adjusted models for Black or Latine young adults.

Adjusted Models Examining Neighborhood Disadvantage and World Assumptions

Black young adults

Low neighborhood support was associated with lower scores on the Safety and Vulnerability subscale (p = .01) and was robust in the context of trauma (p = .02) but did not remain significant after accounting for family-wise error. In addition, low neighborhood support was associated with lower scores on the Trustworthiness and Goodness of People subscale (p = .03) but was not robust in the context of assaultive and non-assaultive trauma.

Latine young adults

Neighborhood violence was associated with lower scores on the Safety and Vulnerability subscale (p = .04), but this effect was not robust in the context of trauma. Low neighborhood support was associated with lower scores on the Trustworthiness and Goodness of People subscale only in the context of trauma (p = .048). However, this effect did not remain significant after accounting for family-wise error.

Asian young adults

Low neighborhood support was robustly associated with lower scores on the Controllability of Events (p = .02) and the Trustworthiness of People subscales (p < .0001) and higher scores on the Predictability of People subscale (p = .03) in the context of assaultive and non-assaultive trauma (ps = .01; <.0001; .04, respectively). Notably, only the association between low neighborhood support and the Trustworthiness of People subscale (p < .0001) remained significant after accounting for family-wise error.

Discussion

This study examined the association of racial discrimination and neighborhood disadvantage with world assumptions in the context of events that fall under standard definitions of interpersonal and non-interpersonal trauma among Black, Latine, and Asian young adults. We observed an association of racial discrimination with world assumptions (specifically, controllability of events) independent of trauma exposure effects only among Asian young adults. These findings suggest that among Asian young adults, experiencing racial discrimination is linked to feeling less control over events that happen to them and this association cannot be fully explained by history of trauma. That is, for Asian young adults, the experience of racial discrimination is similarly linked to shattered world beliefs as other traumatic experiences. This association may have been particularly relevant for Asian young adults given their unique experiences of being viewed as the “model minority” (Lee, 1996). In addition, prior research conducted with Chinese American adolescents suggests that the association between discrimination and poor mental health outcomes is exacerbated among those more acculturated to American culture (Benner & Kim, 2009), implicating a possible role of acculturation that is worth pursuing in future research on world assumptions. From a clinical perspective, our findings further highlight the importance of assessing for experiences of racial discrimination, and their impact, to create space for these experiences to be discussed. Given the global nature of world assumptions, they may often be related to presenting concerns.

Counter to our hypotheses, the associations between racial discrimination and world assumptions were not significant among Black and Latine young adults. It is possible that this sample of Black and Latine young adults hold other protective sociodemographic characteristics (e.g., higher socioeconomic status) or factors (e.g., strong ethnic identity) relative to the general population that buffer the effect of racial discrimination on world assumptions. Future studies might replicate this work in a general population sample, across a broader age range, examining ethnic identity development as a moderator, capturing the heterogeneity in the frequency, severity, and types of racial discrimination experienced, and perhaps using a different racial discrimination measure such as the Trauma Symptoms of Discrimination Scale (Williams et al., 2018).

The finding that low support in their childhood neighborhood was associated with world assumptions across all groups merits mention, even though the effect was only robust after accounting for other trauma and family-wise error among Asian young adults. Specifically, low neighborhood support contributed to feeling that people were less trustworthy. Notably, assaultive trauma but not low neighborhood support was a significant predictor among Black adults. We can only speculate in the absence of data that captures underlying mechanisms, but the possibility that the link to perceived trustworthiness of people is more robust for an acute (vs. chronic) interpersonal type of adversity merits exploration in future research.

Similarly, neighborhood violence was associated with lower world assumptions related to safety and vulnerability specifically among Latine young adults, although the association did not remain after accounting for other trauma. These findings suggest that among Latine young adults, experiencing neighborhood violence is linked to a lower sense of safety and vulnerability in the world. Furthermore, these findings provide additional support for the need for action to eliminate racism, which contributes to the overrepresentation of POC in disadvantaged neighborhoods. Eliminating structural racism by reforming policies, procedures, and standards of practice that lead to differential access to education and high paying jobs based on perceived race will help close the gap in access to safe and supportive housing. In addition, focusing less on criminalizing behavior and more on providing resources to meet basic needs and increased access to opportunities to advance will also help achieve this goal.

Many of the effects that reached the level of significance before accounting for family-wise error were robust in the context of other trauma, highlighting the importance of assessing other adverse events including racial discrimination and neighborhood disadvantage. The exception was among the Black subsample in which the association between low neighborhood support and trustworthiness of people fell out of the range of significance when accounting for assaultive trauma. This suggests that assaultive trauma had a stronger association with trustworthiness of people than low neighborhood support among Black young adults. The findings from this study can be used to guide future research aiming to replicate these effects with a more targeted focus (e.g., narrowing the racial/ethnic subgroups, adverse events, or facets of world assumptions examined) in larger, sufficiently powered samples to assess these associations.

It is important that the findings from this study are interpreted in the context of its limitations. Our study was based on a sample of college students, so our findings may not generalize to populations that vary in terms of social class, geographical location, age, or other demographic factors. Although we hypothesized that experiences of racial discrimination and childhood neighborhood disadvantage would lead to changes in world assumptions, we cannot draw any substantial conclusions about the direction of the effect given the cross-sectional nature of these data. Our discrimination measure limited us from controlling for multiple forms of discrimination in the models given that each form of discrimination was assessed using the same measure. Although our findings indicate differences in these associations across racial/ethnic group, our study does not inform why these differences were found across racial/ethnic group. Identifying the sources of these differences across racial/ethnic group is a separate, important next step. Furthermore, future research might also examine different types of racial discrimination across racial and ethnic groups.

This study broadly supports consideration of other adverse events, primarily racial discrimination and neighborhood disadvantage as playing a significant role in world assumptions, particularly among Asian young adults. It is important to note that context matters and changes in world assumptions can be adaptive and protective for survival. In other words, a change in world assumptions may not necessarily serve as an indicator of pathology. At the same time, the process of adjusting worldviews after a traumatic event can contribute to the development of psychopathology such that extreme shifts in world assumptions beyond what may be needed can be a signal of mental health impairment. Given the process of change occurs on a spectrum with no clear cutoff, it is imperative that clinicians avoid over-pathologizing by being careful to distinguish between adaptive versus maladaptive, extreme shifts in world assumptions. We recommend that future studies examine other adverse events that might impact world assumptions including structural and institutional racism (e.g., being denied a bank loan or failing to receive a promotion at work due to your perceived race), unemployment, and food insecurity using a non-college student sample and including Indigenous people. In addition, the use of measures of microaggressions specific to Black, Asian, and Latine people could increase our understanding of the unique experiences of racism each group faces and the impact of these experiences on world assumptions especially given the increase in anti-Asian racism experienced among some Asian groups in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. In summary, this study contributes to the literature by highlighting culturally relevant community- and societal-level factors that may disproportionately negatively impact global perceptions of safety and trustworthiness of others among POC.

Supplemental Material

sj-docx-1-jiv-10.1177_08862605221137701 – Supplemental material for The Associations of Racial Discrimination and Neighborhood Disadvantage With World Assumptions Among Black, Latine, and Asian Young Adults

Supplemental material, sj-docx-1-jiv-10.1177_08862605221137701 for The Associations of Racial Discrimination and Neighborhood Disadvantage With World Assumptions Among Black, Latine, and Asian Young Adults by Angela M. Haeny, Samantha C. Holmes, Jacqueline Woerner, Terrell A. Hicks, Manik Ahuja, Cassie Overstreet, Ananda Amstadter and Carolyn E. Sartor in Journal of Interpersonal Violence

Footnotes

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The authors declared no potential conflicts of interests with respect to the authorship and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The authors disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research and/or authorship of this article: The present study was supported by the National Institutes of Health (R01AA012640, R01AA023549, K23AA028515, T32DA15035, T32DA019426, R25DA035163, and F31DA048559).

ORCID iDs

Angela M. Haeny

Samantha C. Holmes

Jacqueline Woerner

Notes

Supplemental Material

Supplemental material for this article is available online.

Author Biographies

Angela M. Haeny, PhD, is an Assistant Professor of Psychiatry at Yale School of Medicine and Director of the Race Equity and Addiction Lab (REAL) at Yale. Her work involves identifying approaches for enhancing treatment retention and satisfaction among Black adults by tailoring treatment to include racial stress and trauma.

Samantha C. Holmes, PhD, is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychology at the College of Staten Island. Her research is focused on women’s experiences of trauma; identifying culturally relevant protective and risk factors of mental health outcomes; developing, assessing, and disseminating trauma-informed interventions for survivors with complex clinical presentations; and expanding the conceptualization of trauma to include oppression.

Jacqueline Woerner, PhD, is an Assistant Professor in the Departments of Sociology and Psychology at the University of Central Florida and Director of the STRIVE Lab. Her primary area of research focus is on identifying and understanding the self-regulatory mechanisms that underlie engagement in risk behavior.

Terrell A. Hicks, MS, is a doctoral student in the Psychology Department at Virginia Commonwealth University. His research interests lie at the intersection of biological and environmental factors that influence the development of PTSD and comorbid problematic substance use (i.e., cannabis, tobacco, alcohol).

Manik Ahuja, PhD, is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Health Services Management and Policy at East Tennessee State University. His research foci include the following: psychiatric epidemiology, substance use/addiction prevention, substance use disorders, gambling disorders, discrimination and health, health promotion/behavior, mental health disorders, social determinants of health, health policy, health informatics, and risk screening.

Cassie Overstreet, PhD, is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the National Center for PTSD through the VA Connecticut Healthcare System and Yale School of Medicine. Her current research interests broadly encompass the impact of trauma exposure on the development and maintenance of psychiatric disorders.

Ananda B. Amstadter, PhD, is an Associate Professor at the Virginia Institute for Psychiatric and Behavioral Genetics at Virginia Commonwealth University. Her program of research broadly focuses on understanding factors that affect post-trauma trajectory of symptoms among individuals exposed to a variety of potentially traumatic events (e.g., disasters, combat exposure, interpersonal violence).

Carolyn Sartor, PhD, is an Associate Professor of Psychiatry at Yale School of Medicine. Her program of research is aimed at refining etiological models of problem substance use in adolescents and young adults by integrating a developmental psychopathology perspective with genetically informative designs.

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