Resilience and Family Socialization Processes in Ethnic Minority Youth: Illuminating the Achievement-Health Paradox

Abstract

Youth in marginalized communities who “strive” to rise above adversity, including systemic racism and poverty, are considered “resilient.” African-American, Latinx, and Asian-American youth often achieve admirable academic success despite limited social capital and high early life stress by adopting a “striving persistent behavioral style” (SPBS). SPBS may be supported by family socialization processes that facilitate reliance on self-regulation processes. Unfortunately, a young person’s resilience in one domain (i.e., academic) can come at a cost in other domains, including physical and mental health morbidities that are under-identified and under-treated. Indeed, research suggests a link between SPBS in the face of adversity and later health morbidities among ethnic minority youth. Herein, we describe SPBS as an adaptation to minority stress that not only promotes social mobility but may also stoke physical and mental health disparities. We review how family processes related to academic, emotional, and ethnic-racial socialization can facilitate the striving persistent behavioral style. We emphasize the double bind that ethnic minority families are caught in and discuss directions for future research and clinical implications for individual and family-level interventions. While needed, we argue that individual and family-level interventions represent a near-term work around. Solutions and factors that shape the need for SPBS and its cost must be addressed structurally.

Low mental health literacy and its association with depression, anxiety and poor sleep quality in Chinese elderly

“…Social support could regulate emotion via seeking listening and keeping company (Fu & Zhang, 2018). Cognitive reappraisal is an adaptive emotion regulation strategy and regulates emotion by changing its affective influence (Doan et al, 2022;Gross & John, 2003).…”

“…Social support could regulate emotion via seeking listening and keeping company (Fu & Zhang, 2018). Cognitive reappraisal is an adaptive emotion regulation strategy and regulates emotion by changing its affective influence (Doan et al, 2022; Gross & John, 2003). Attentional distraction regulates emotion via distracting or diverting attention from a negative stimulus to a neutral or positive stimulus (Martins et al, 2018).…”

Racial climate reform in independent schools: How coping self‐efficacy buffers systemic and proximal racial stress for students of color

“…Why create more drama when you are trying to succeed? Doan et al (2022) describe a resilient coping called Striving Persistent Behavioral Style that SOC may develop from having to survive racial oppression in society and schooling. Despite its resilience and success benefits, this style is costly as it may also undermine the youth self‐regulation capacity, specifically the suppression of negative emotions while navigating stressful encounters.…”

“…Despite its resilience and success benefits, this style is costly as it may also undermine the youth self‐regulation capacity, specifically the suppression of negative emotions while navigating stressful encounters. Doan et al (2022) compare this coping approach to John Henryism (James, 1994; James et al, 1992), where African Americans exert enormous physical and psychological determination to counter inferiority stereotypes, but simultaneously risk serious injury to emotional and physical health and longevity. By understanding the effects of systemic and proximal racial interactions that SOC are exposed to, we can develop interventions and remedies for the health dangers of both high‐effort coping and emotional suppression of resistance (Stevenson, 2014).…”

A Resistance Framework for Racially Minoritized Youth Behaviors During the Transition to Adulthood

“…These particular racial socialization messages may or may not be incorporated into racially minoritized youth's identity and future self‐policing. Either way, there are both benefits to aspects of the racial socialization process such as coping, prosociality, and cultural empowerment (Anderson et al., 2018; Stevenson et al., 2002; Wang et al., 2020) and consequences such as chronic stress and resultant health conditions (Doan et al., 2022). Self‐policing may reinforce a sense of isolation from broader society as racially minoritized youth experience the consequences of racial socialization on their time and behaviors that their White counterparts do not.…”