Skip to main content

Advertisement

SpringerLink
Log in

Anxiety, Stress, and Trauma Symptoms in African Americans: Negative Affectivity Does Not Explain the Relationship between Microaggressions and Psychopathology

  • Published:
Journal of Racial and Ethnic Health Disparities Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Prior research has demonstrated a clear relationship between experiences of racial microaggressions and various indicators of psychological unwellness. One concern with these findings is that the role of negative affectivity, considered a marker of neuroticism, has not been considered. Negative affectivity has previously been correlated to experiences of racial discrimination and psychological unwellness and has been suggested as a cause of the observed relationship between microaggressions and psychopathology. We examined the relationships between self-reported frequency of experiences of microaggressions and several mental health outcomes (i.e., anxiety [Beck Anxiety Inventory], stress [General Ethnic and Discrimination Scale], and trauma symptoms [Trauma Symptoms of Discrimination Scale]) in 177 African American and European American college students, controlling for negative affectivity (the Positive and Negative Affect Schedule) and gender. Results indicated that African Americans experience more racial discrimination than European Americans. Negative affectivity in African Americans appears to be significantly related to some but not all perceptions of the experience of discrimination. A strong relationship between racial mistreatment and symptoms of psychopathology was evident, even after controlling for negative affectivity. In summary, African Americans experience clinically measurable anxiety, stress, and trauma symptoms as a result of racial mistreatment, which cannot be wholly explained by individual differences in negative affectivity. Future work should examine additional factors in these relationships, and targeted interventions should be developed to help those suffering as a result of racial mistreatment and to reduce microaggressions.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  1. Cokley K, Hall-Clark B, Hicks D. Ethnic minority-majority status and mental health: the mediating role of perceived discrimination. J Ment Health Couns. 2011;33:243–63.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  2. Pieterse AL, Todd NR, Neville HA, Carter RT. Perceived racism and mental health among Black American adults: a meta-analytic review. J Couns Psychol. 2012;59:1–9.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  3. Banks K, Kohn-Wood LP. The influence of racial identity profiles on the relationship between racial discrimination and depressive symptoms. J Black Psychol. 2007;33:331–54.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  4. Anglin OM, Lighty Q, Greenspoon M, Ellman LM. Racial discrimination is associated with distressing subthreshold positive psychotic symptoms among US urban ethnic minority young adults. Soc Psychiatry Psychiatr Epidemiol. 2014;49:1545–55.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  5. Janssen I, Hanssen M, Bak M, Bijl RV, De Graaf R, Vollehergh W, et al. Discrimination and delusional ideation. Br J Psychiatry. 2003;H12:7J–6.

    Google Scholar 

  6. Pierce CM. Offensive mechanisms. In: Barbour F, editor. The Black seventies. Boston: Porter Sargent; 1970. p. 265–82.

    Google Scholar 

  7. Sue DW, Capodilupo CM, Torino GC, Bucceri JM, Holder A, Nadal KL, et al. Racial microaggressions in everyday life: implications for clinical practice. Am Psychol. 2007;62:271–86.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  8. Essed P. Everyday racism: reports from women of two cultures. Alameda: Hunter House Publishers; 1990.

    Google Scholar 

  9. Chae DH, Lincoln KD, Jackson JS. Discrimination, attribution, and racial group identification: implications for psychological distress among Black Americans in the National Survey of American Life (2001–2003). Am J Orthop. 2011;81:498–506.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  10. Ayalon L, Gum AM. The relationships between major lifetime discrimination, everyday discrimination, and mental health in three racial and ethnic groups of older adults. Aging Ment Health. 2011;15:587–94.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  11. Clark TT, Salas-Wright CP, Vaughn MG, Whitfield KE. Everyday discrimination and mood and substance use disorders: a latent profile analysis with African Americans and Caribbean Blacks. Addict Behav. 2015;40:119–25.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  12. Landrine H, Klonoff EA, Corral I, Fernandez S, Roesch S. Conceptualizing and measuring ethnic discrimination in health research. J Behav Med. 2006;29:79–94.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  13. Ong AD, Burrow AL, Fuller-Rowell TE, Ja NM, Sue DW. Racial microaggressions and daily well-being among Asian Americans. J Couns Psychol. 2013;60:188–99.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  14. Liao KY, Weng CY, West LM. Social connectedness and intolerance of uncertainty as moderators between racial microaggressions and anxiety among Black individuals. J Couns Psychol. 2016;63:240–6.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  15. Williams MT, Taylor RJ, Mouzon DM, Oshin L, Himle JA, Chatters LM. Discrimination and symptoms of obsessive-compulsive disorder among African Americans. Am J Orthopsychiatry. 2017. https://doi.org/10.1037/ort0000285.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  16. O'Keefe VM, Wingate LR, Cole AB, Hollingsworth DW, Tucker RP. Seemingly harmless racial communications are not so harmless: racial microaggressions lead to suicidal ideation by way of depression symptoms. Suicide Life Threat Behav. 2015;45:567–76.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  17. Chou T, Asnaani A, Hofmann SG. Perception of racial discrimination and psychopathology across three U.S. ethnic minority groups. Cult Divers Ethn Minor Psychol. 2012;18:74–81.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  18. Torres L, Driscoll MW, Burrow AL. Racial microaggressions and psychological functioning among highly achieving African-Americans: a mixed-methods approach. J Soc Clin Psychol. 2010;29:1074–99.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  19. Wei M, T-Y K, Liao KY-H. Minority stress and college persistence attitudes among African American, Asian American, and Latino students: perception of university environment as a mediator. Cult Divers Ethn Minor Psychol. 2011;17:195–203.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  20. Wong G, Derthick AO, David EJR, Saw A, Okazaki S. The what, the why, and the how: a review of racial microaggressions research in psychology. Race Soc Probl. 2014;6:181–200.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  21. Lilienfeld SO. Microaggressions: strong claims, inadequate evidence. Perspect Psychol Sci. 2017;12:138–69.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  22. Rothbart MK, Ahadi SA, Evans DE. Temperament and personality: origins and outcomes. J Pers Soc Psychol. 2000;78:122–35.

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  23. Watson D, Clark LA. Negative affectivity—the disposition to experience aversive emotional states. Psychol Bull. 1984;96:465–90.

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  24. Shankman SA, Klein DN. The relation between depression and anxiety: an evaluation of the tripartite, approach-withdrawal and valence-arousal models. Clin Psychol Rev. 2003;23:605–37.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  25. Taylor J, Eastwick C, Wilson R, Lawrence C. The influence of negative oriented personality traits on the effects of wind turbine noise. Personal Individ Differ. 2013;54:338–43.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  26. Chang EC. Positive and negative affectivity for academic and interpersonal domains: relations to general affectivity, extraversion, and neuroticism. Personal Individ Differ. 1997;22:929–32.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  27. Mercer SH, Zeigler-Hill V, Wallace M, Hayes DM. Development and initial validation of the Inventory of Microaggressions Against Black Individuals. J Couns Psychol. 2011;58:457–69.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  28. Kodellas S, Fisher BS, Wilcox P. Situational and dispositional determinants of workplace victimization: the effects of routine activities, negative affectivity, and low self-control. Int Rev Victimology. 2015;21:321–42.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  29. Lahey BB. Public health significance of neuroticism. Am Psychol. 2009;64:241–56.

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  30. Consedine NS, Magai C, Cohen CI, Gillspie M. Ethnic variation in the impact of negative affect and emotion inhibition on the health of older adults. J Gerontol Psychol Sci. 2002;57B:396–408.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  31. Haidt J. The unwisest idea on campus: commentary on Lilienfeld. Perspect Psychol Sci. 2017;12:176–7.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  32. Williams MT, Chapman LK, Wong J, Turkheimer E. The role of ethnic identity in symptoms of anxiety and depression in African Americans. Psychiatry Res. 2012;199:31–6.

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  33. Beck AT, Epstein N, Brown G, Steer RA. An inventory for measuring clinical anxiety: psychometric properties. J Consult Clin Psychol. 1988;56:893–7.

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  34. Chapman LK, Woodruff-Borden J. The impact of family functioning on anxiety symptoms in African American and European young adults. Personal Individ Differ. 2009;47:583–9.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  35. Chapman LK, Williams SR, Mast BT, Woodruff-Borden JA. Confirmatory factor analysis of the Beck anxiety inventory in African American and European American young adults. J Anxiety Disord. 2009;23:387–92.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  36. Williams MT, Printz D, De Lapp RCT Assessing racial trauma in African Americans with the Trauma Symptoms of Discrimination Scale. Presented at the annual convention of the Association of Behavioral and Cognitive Therapies, San Diego, CA. 2017.

  37. Torres-Harding SR, Andrade AJ, Romero Diaz CE. The racial microaggressions scale (RMAS): a new scale to measure experiences of racial microaggressions in people of color. Cult Divers Ethn Minor Psychol. 2012;18:153–64.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  38. Watson D, Clark LA, Tellegen A. Development and validation of brief measures of positive and negative affect: the PANAS scales. J Pers Soc Psychol. 1988;54:1063–70.

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  39. Phinney J. The multigroup ethnic identity measure: a new scale for use with adolescents and young adults from diverse groups. J Adolesc Res. 1992;7:156–76.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  40. Roberts RE, Phinney JS, Masse LC, Chen YR, Roberts CR, Romero A. The structure of ethnic identity of young adults from diverse ethnocultural groups. J Early Adolesc. 1999;19:301–22.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  41. Williams MT, Duque G, Chapman LK, Wetterneck CT, De Lapp RCT. Ethnic identity and regional differences in mental health in a national sample of African American young adults. J Racial Ethn Health Disparities. In press;

  42. McLean CP, Asnaani A, Litz BT, Hofmann SG. Gender differences in anxiety disorders: prevalence, course of illness, comorbidity and burden of illness. J Psychiatr Res. 2011;45:1027–35.

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  43. Assari S, Moazen-Zadeh E, Caldwell CH, Zimmerman MA. Racial discrimination during adolescence predicts mental health deterioration in adulthood: gender differences among Blacks. Front Public Health. 2017;5:104.

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  44. Sue DW. Microaggressions and “evidence”: empirical or experiential reality? Perspect Psychol Sci. 2017;12:170–2.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  45. Breslau J, Aguilar-Gaxiola S, Kendler KS, Su M, Williams D, Kessler RC. Specifying race-ethnic differences in risk for psychiatric disorder in a USA national sample. Psychol Med. 2006;36:57–68.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  46. McGilloway A, Hall RE, Lee T, Bhui KSA. Systematic review of personality disorder, race and ethnicity: prevalence, aetiology and treatment. BMC Psychiatry. 2010;10

  47. Assari S, Lankarani MM. Stressful life events and risk of depression 25 years later: race and gender differences. Front Public Health. 2016;4:49.

    PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  48. Ifatunji MA, Harnois CE. An explanation for the gender gap in perceptions of discrimination among African Americans: considering the role of gender bias in measurement. Sociol Race Ethn. 2015;2:263–88.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  49. Carter RT. Racism and psychological and emotional injury: recognizing and assessing race-based traumatic stress. Couns Psychol. 2007;35:13–105.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  50. Barnes LL, Lewis TT, Begeny CT, Yu L, Bennett DA, Wilson RS. Perceived discrimination and cognition in older African Americans. J Int Neuropsychol Soc. 2012;18:856–65.

    Article  CAS  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  51. Williams MT, Peña A, Mier-Chairez J. Assessing and treating racism-related stress and trauma among Latinos. In: Benuto LT, editor. Toolkit for counseling Spanish-speaking clients. Springer; 2017 (in press).

  52. Carter RT, Mazzula S, Victoria R, Vazquez R, Hall S, Smith S, et al. Initial development of the race-based traumatic stress symptom scale: assessing the emotional impact of racism. Psychol Trauma: Theory Res Pract Policy. 2013;5:1–9.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  53. Rivas-Drake D, Hughes D, Way N. A preliminary analysis of associations among ethnic racial socialization, ethnic discrimination, and ethnic identity among urban sixth graders. J Res Adolesc. 2009;19:558–84.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  54. Assari S. Neuroticism predicts subsequent risk of major depression for Whites but not Blacks. Behav Sci. 2017;7:64.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  55. Woo B. Racial discrimination and mental health in the USA: testing the reverse racism hypothesis. J Racial Ethn Health Disparities In press. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40615-017-0421-6.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  56. Hudson DL, Bullard KM, Neighbors HW, Geronimus AT, Yang J, Jackson JS. Are benefits conferred with greater socioeconomic position undermined by racial discrimination among African American men? J Men's Health. 2012;9:127–36.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  57. Comas-Díaz L. Racial trauma recovery: a race-informed therapeutic approach to racial wounds. In: Alvarez AN, Liang CTH, Neville HA, editors. The cost of racism for people of color: contextualizing experiences of discrimination. Cultural, racial, and ethnic psychology book series. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association; 2016. p. 249–72.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgements

This research was supported in part by a grant to Monnica T. Williams from the American Psychological Foundation. The authors would like to acknowledge Marlena Debreaux, M.A., and Judy Mier-Chairez, B.A., for assistance with data collection and Broderick Sawyer, M.S., for measurement development.

Funding

This research was supported in part by a grant to the first author from the American Psychological Foundation.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychological Sciences, University of Connecticut, 406 Babbidge Road, Unit 1020, Storrs, CT, 06269-1020, USA

    Monnica T. Williams & Terence H. W. Ching

  2. Department of Psychology, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA

    Jonathan W. Kanter

Authors
  1. Monnica T. Williams
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Jonathan W. Kanter
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Terence H. W. Ching
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Contributions

The first author conceptualized the research, conducted the literature search, analyzed the data, and wrote the first draft of the manuscript. All authors contributed to the final version of the manuscript.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Monnica T. Williams.

Ethics declarations

Ethics Approval and Consent to Participate

All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.

Conflict of Interest

The authors report no conflicts of interest.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Williams, M.T., Kanter, J.W. & Ching, T.H.W. Anxiety, Stress, and Trauma Symptoms in African Americans: Negative Affectivity Does Not Explain the Relationship between Microaggressions and Psychopathology. J. Racial and Ethnic Health Disparities 5, 919–927 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40615-017-0440-3

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Revised:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s40615-017-0440-3

Keywords

Search

Navigation