Race-Related Stress, Racial Identity Attitudes, and Mental Health among Black Women

This study examined whether racial identity attitudes moderate the relationship between racist stress events, racist stress appraisal, and mental health. One hundred eighteen African American and 144 self-identified Caribbean women completed the Cross Racial Identity Scale, the Schedule of Racist Events, the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale, and the Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale. Hierarchical regression analyses revealed that multicultural identity attitudes moderated the relationship between racist stress appraisals and depression, as well as the relationship between racist stress events and depression. Compared with participants with multicultural identity attitude scores 1 standard deviation below the mean, those with multicultural identity attitude scores 1 standard deviation above the mean were somewhat protected from the impact of racist stress events and racist stress appraisals. The primary conclusion is that multicultural identity attitudes are somewhat protective against the impact of race-related stress on mental health. Implications for mental health practitioners and future research in the field of Black psychology are discussed. (Contains 2 figures and 9 tables.)