Journal of Black Psychology

The relationship between racial discrimination, parental functioning, and child adjustment is not well understood. The goal of the present study was to assess parental reports of discrimination in relation to depression and parenting practices, as well as on subsequent child internalizing and externalizing problems in low-income Black families. Data include a subsample of the Early Steps project, a multisite longitudinal study of financial and behaviorally at-risk families. Structural equation modeling was used to analyze our hypothesized model. Excellent model fit was established after removing externalizing problems from the model. As predicted, indirect associations were found from discrimination to parental depression, parenting, and child internalizing problems; and direct associations were found from discrimination to child internalizing problems. The results are consistent with findings suggesting that discrimination is negatively associated with adult well-being; moreover, contribute to the sparse literature on the effects of discrimination beyond the direct recipient. Finally, that parent discrimination was directly associated with child emotional problems suggests the continued need to address and treat discriminatory practices more generally.

The psychology of race is in its infancy, particularly in the United Kingdom and especially regarding mixed-race. Most use untimed explicit indexes and qualitative/self-report measures. Here, we used not only explicit responses (participants’ choice of response categories) but also implicit data (participants’ response times, RT). In a Stroop task, 92 Black, White, and mixed-race participants classified photographs of mixed-race persons. Photos were accompanied by a word, such as Black or White. Participants ignored the word, simply deciding whether to categorize photos as White or Black. Averaged across three different instructional sets, White participants categorized mixed-race slightly to the White side of the center point, with Black participants doing the converse. Intriguingly, mixed-race participants placed mixed-race photos further toward Black than did the Black group. But for RT, they now indicated midway between White and Black participants. We conclude that at the conscious (key-press) level, mixed-race persons see being mixed-race as Black, but at the unconscious (RT) level, their perception is a perfect balance between Black and White. Findings are discussed in terms of two recent theories of racial identity.

The current study examined body image concerns among African American women. In recent years, there has been an attempt to include ethnic minority samples in body image studies, but few specifically examine unique issues pertaining to beauty and body image for African American college-age women. A total of 31 African American women participated in one of five focus groups on the campus of a large Southwestern University to examine beauty and body image. Data were analyzed using a thematic approach and several themes were identified. The majority of themes pertained to issues related to hair, skin tone, body type, and message sources. Themes included sacrifice, ignorance/racial microaggressions, validation and invalidation by others, thick/toned/curvy as optimal, hypersexualization, and being thin is for White women. Findings of the current study suggest a reconceptualization of body image for African American women where relevant characteristics such as hair and skin tone are given more priority over traditional body image concerns often associated with European American women.

The purpose of the current study was to test coping strategies as moderators of the effects of intragroup race-related stressors on academic performance and overall perceived stress for 201 African American students at a predominantly White college institution. Few investigations have documented effects of intragroup race-related difficulties for African American college students. Even fewer investigations have pinpointed types of coping efforts that are used to address intragroup race-related difficulty. It was hypothesized that coping strategies would moderate the effects of intragroup race-related stressors on academic performance and perceived stress, such that adaptive strategies would be associated with low levels of perceived stress and positive academic performance, whereas maladaptive strategies were expected to be associated with high levels of perceived stress and poor academic performance in relation to exposure to intragroup race-related stressors. Moderated regression analyses revealed no significant interactions in predicting academic performance. Results further revealed that greater use of disengagement strategies were associated with increased levels of perceived stress in relation to increased exposure to intragroup race-related stressors. Implications of the findings are discussed.