Daily Experiences of Discrimination and Ethnic/Racial Minority Adolescents’ Sleep: The Moderating Role of Social Support

Abstract

Using data from a 14-day diary study of 95 ethnic/racial minority adolescents, this study examined the within-person effect of daily discrimination tied to multiple social identities on adolescents' daily sleep quality and duration and whether daily support from important others (i.e., friends, parents, and teachers) would moderate these links. We found that daily discrimination was a low-frequency, but high-impact event associated with shorter sleep duration. Results pointed to the nuanced roles of daily support. Support from friends was negatively related to sleep duration, whereas support from parents appeared to be promotive to sleep quality. Support from teachers protected adolescents from the negative effects of discrimination on sleep duration. Implications for future interventions targeting sleep disturbances associated with discrimination are discussed.

Every Day Matters: Using Daily Methods to Understand Oppression and BIPOC Youth Development in Context

“…As such, research that employs daily methods provides better insights in terms of the frequency and patterns of OREs in BIPOC adolescents’ everyday life. Most daily studies to date show that discrimination occurs, on average, on one to two days per week (e.g., Chen et al., 2022 in this special issue; Douglass et al., 2016; Potochnick et al., 2012; Seaton & Iida, 2019; Yip et al., 2020). Yet, there are also studies observing more frequent discriminatory occurrences (2–5 events per day; English et al., 2020; Seaton & Douglass, 2014).…”

“…Moving to the developmental consequences, research using daily methods provides unique insights into the more immediate mechanisms via which discrimination and oppression influence BIPOC adolescents’ everyday adjustment. Existing daily research has documented the same‐day and/or next‐day implications of OREs (e.g., discrimination, teasing, victimization, and microaggression) on psychological well‐being in ethnically/racially diverse samples (Cheeks et al., 2020; Douglass et al., 2016; Seaton & Douglass, 2014; Seaton & Iida, 2019; Wang, 2021); there is also an emerging focus on markers of psychobiological functioning, such as sleep (Chen et al., 2022; Goosby et al., 2018; Yip et al., 2020) and physiological stress responses, including HPA axis functioning (Seaton & Zeiders, 2021; Zeiders et al., 2018) and sympathetic arousal (Jelsma et al., 2021). These daily mechanisms shed light on potential pathways through which everyday OREs may contribute to the long‐term mental and physical health disparities that often disadvantage BIPOC youth.…”

“…Moving beyond the direct developmental consequences of OREs, daily methods are also advantageous in capturing dynamic protective processes and contexts related to OREs (Jackson et al., 2021). In this regard, existing studies has examined daily fluctuations in individual and contextual protective factors such as sleep (Wang & Yip, 2020), ethnic/racial identity (Seaton & Iida, 2019; Yip et al., 2022), ethnic/racial socialization (Cheeks et al., 2020), and social support (Chen et al., 2022), demonstrating the moderating role of these factors for the daily associations between OREs and adolescent outcomes. Research has also investigated more stable contexts such as school diversity in conditioning the daily associations between discrimination and adjustment (Seaton & Douglass, 2014).…”

“…For example, Chen et al. (2022) show that teacher support (but not parent or peer support) on the same day buffers the influence of discrimination on adolescent sleep that night. There is also an increasing recognition of youth activism in combat against discrimination, racism, and oppression (Sánchez et al., 2022 in this special issue), particularly in online spaces (Baskin‐Sommers et al., 2021).…”

“…More work is needed to understand how protective processes in other contexts (e.g., school, neighborhood, and online) operate in tandem with OREs on a daily basis to influence youth adjustment. For example, Chen et al (2022) show that teacher support (but not parent or peer support) on the same day buffers the influence of discrimination on adolescent sleep that night. There is also an increasing recognition of youth activism in combat against discrimination, racism, and oppression (S anchez et al, 2022 in this special issue), particularly in online spaces (Baskin-Sommers et al, 2021).…”