Racial identity and the racial paradox in mental health

Abstract

The paradox that African Americans experience relatively good mental health despite being exposed to stressful events and conditions, including cultural racism, remains unexplained. The present study investigates whether two dimensions of racial identity - ingroup closeness and ingroup evaluation - help explain these puzzling findings. African Americans' racial identity tends to be positive, and it is associated with higher self-esteem and mastery and a lower likelihood of depression. Using data from the Collaborative Psychiatric Epidemiology Surveys (CPES), we show that African Americans who have a positive racial identity have greater self-esteem and mastery and a lower likelihood of depression, anxiety, and substance use disorder than whites. Without a positive racial identity, African Americans' mental health would be the same as or poorer than that of whites. We conclude that racial identity partly explains how African Americans enjoy relatively good mental health, despite greater exposure to negative racial stereotypes, discrimination, and other stressors.