Neighborhood social processes as moderators between racial discrimination and depressive symptoms for African American adolescents

Abstract

Racial discrimination is associated with numerous psychological consequences, including increased depressive symptoms for African American adolescents Wong, Eccles, & Sameroff, 2003). Adolescents' perceptions of their neighborhood can influence how youth interpret and manage racial discrimination (Sampson, Morenoff, & Gannon-Rowley, 2002). Yet little is known about how adolescent perceptions of neighborhood cohesion and neighborhood disorganization protect or exacerbate the effects of racial discrimination, or how these effects vary by youth's gender. Therefore, the current study examined whether neighborhood social cohesion and neighborhood disorganization moderated the association between racial discrimination and depressive symptoms for African American adolescents and how the effects differ for boys and girls.Participants were 106 African American adolescents (57% female; mean age 15.14) from an urban metropolitan area. Regression analyses suggest that perceptions of neighborhood social cohesion protected against racial discrimination for boys and girls. Additionally, the results indicate that when boys perceive less neighborhood disorganization, racial discrimination has a greater influence on their depressive symptoms. Findings have implications for intervention and prevention efforts that enhance and utilize positive neighborhood social processes for youth contending with racial discrimination.

Personality, Social Capital, and Depressive Symptomatology Among African Americans

“…The Perry et al (2008) measure has been used with African American samples (Clark, Holt, Wang, Williams, & Schulz, 2013;Perry et al, 2008). The relevance of social capital also is supported by prior research demonstrating the importance of communalism, kinship, and neighborhoods in the African American community (McAdoo, 2007;Nobles, 1991;Saleem, Busby, & Lambert, 2018).…”

Ethnic‐racial Socialization, Perceived Neighborhood Quality, and Psychosocial Adjustment among African American and Caribbean Black Adolescents

“…Likewise, research focused on racial discrimination suggests that ERS effects vary according to neighborhood social processes. For example, neighborhood cohesion can mitigate the effects of racial discrimination on depressive symptoms (Saleem et al, 2018) and externalizing behavior (Riina et al, 2013) for African American adolescents. Moreover, neighborhood collective efficacy protected against adverse effects of race‐related stress among African American adolescents (Driscoll et al, 2015).…”

“…In particular, neighborhood qualities such as social cohesion and trust may provide a context in which preparation for bias, promotion of mistrust, and egalitarianism messages are associated with better psychosocial adjustment for youth, but in the absence of these neighborhood qualities, these messages may not promote youth adaptive psychosocial adjustment. Similarly, Saleem et al (2018) suggest that in the context of neighborhood cohesion and collective efficacy, others in the neighborhood may reinforce or bolster parents’ efforts to safeguard their children against the effects of racism.…”

Choosing to see the racial stress that afflicts our Black students

“…Such racial socialization tends to take four forms: cultural socialization (e.g., teaching youth about race, their cultural heritage, and racial pride); preparation for bias (e.g., teaching youth about the kinds of discrimination they are likely to encounter and providing guidance on how to manage and respond to such situations); promotion of mistrust (e.g., highlighting the need for caution in interracial interactions); and/or the promotion of egalitarianism (e.g., choosing to avoid explicit discussions about race or de-emphasizing racial group membership; Hughes et al, 2006). Although contextual factors (e.g., neighborhood composition, cohesiveness, disorganization) can influence which messages adults choose to emphasize and in turn influence how their children cope with racial stress (Saleem, Busby, & Lambert, 2018), the vast majority of Black parents tend to engage in this process with their children across contexts, with cultural socialization and preparation for bias being among the most common strategies.…”