Coping with ethnic‐racial discrimination: Protective‐reactive effects of shift‐and‐persist coping on internalizing symptoms among Black American adolescents

Abstract

AbstractEthnic‐racial discrimination has pervasive negative effects on Black youth's mental health; therefore, it is crucial to identify factors that provide resilience against discrimination. Two promising factors to help youth cope are ethnic‐racial identity (how one feels about their ethnicity/race) and shift‐and‐persist coping (reappraising and accepting an uncontrollable stressor while remaining optimistic about the future). While there is existing scholarship on ethnic‐racial identity among Black youth, this work has not yet assessed the impacts of shift‐and‐persist in this population. Using a sample of 155 Black youth (ages 13–17), the current study examined the interplay between discrimination, ethnic‐racial identity, shift‐and‐persist coping, and internalizing symptoms. Symptoms of depression and anxiety were positively associated with discrimination and negatively associated with shift‐and‐persist. Significant interactions between discrimination and shift‐and‐persist predicting both depressive and anxiety symptoms revealed significant negative associations between shift‐and‐persist and internalizing symptoms at low and average, but not high discrimination levels. Effects are, thus, protective‐reactive; the protective effects of shift‐and‐persist are not significant for youth facing high levels of discrimination. Ethnic‐racial identity, surprisingly, was not significantly associated with either depressive or anxiety symptoms, nor did it interact with shift‐and‐persist as it has in studies of Latinx youth. By understanding the protective benefits of shift‐and‐persist and ethnic‐racial identity in Black youth, during a pivotal period for mental health, we can provide this growing population with tools to lessen the maladaptive outcomes associated with discrimination.