Perceived discrimination and depressive symptoms: What role does the cognitive triad play?

Abstract

Objective The present study was designed to integrate perceived everyday discrimination (PED) as stressor in Beck's cognitive theory of depression. We focused on the relationships between PED, the individual components of the cognitive triad, and depressive symptoms and the role of gender and race in these relationships. Method Participants included 243 technical and community college students (women: 59%; men: 41%; Black: 30%; White: 51%). They completed measures examined PED, the cognitive triad, and depressive symptoms. Results Conducting mediation analyses using PROCESS 4.1.1, we found significant indirect effects from PED on depressive symptoms through negative views of the self and world. The indirect effect through negative views of the future was not significant. The indirect effects of negative views of the world and future were significantly stronger in women participants than men participants and the indirect effect of negative views of the world was significantly stronger in White students than Black students. Conclusions Our findings generally support the integration of PED as stressor into Beck's cognitive theory independent of gender and race. This highlights the responsibility of therapists to assist clients in coping with PED and to advocate for equality within organizations, communities, and society in general.

Individual and neighborhood determinants of depressive symptoms in ethnic minorities in the urban HELIUS sample: a multi-level network perspective

“…Lastly, while taking into account a broad set of variables, we might have still omitted variables that could be of importance to understanding the intricate interplay of depressive symptoms in ethnic minorities. In particular, we have omitted biological and cognitive variables that are relevant to modeling depression (Sacco, Pössel, & Roane, 2023;Wittenborn, Rahmandad, Rick, & Hosseinichimeh, 2016). In addition, including depression as an aggregated score may have overlooked specific associations of the socioeconomic and cultural determinants with respective depressive symptoms.…”