The Associations Between Internalized Racism, Racial Identity, and Psychological Distress.

Henry A Willis,Aaron Neal,Effua E Sosoo,Enrique W Neblett,Donte L Bernard

doi:10.1177/21676968211005598

Abstract

Internalized racism, or the acceptance of negative stereotypes about one's own racial group, is associated with psychological distress; yet, few studies have explored the longitudinal impact of internalized racism on the psychological well-being of African American emerging adults. Furthermore, racial identity's role as a protective factor in the context of internalized racism remains unclear. This study examined the longitudinal impact of internalized racism on psychological distress (depressive and anxiety symptoms) and the moderating role of racial identity beliefs among 171 African American emerging adults. Full cross-lagged panel models revealed no main effects of internalized racism beliefs on psychological distress. However, several racial identity beliefs moderated the relationship between internalized racism beliefs and changes in psychological distress over a year later. Initial levels of alteration of physical appearance, internalization of negative stereotypes, and hair change internalized racism beliefs were related to subsequent psychological distress, but only for those with certain levels of racial centrality, private regard, public regard, and assimilationist, humanist, and nationalist ideology beliefs. These findings suggest that, over time, internalized racism and racial identity beliefs can combine to influence the psychological well-being of African American emerging adults.

Highlights

Internalized racism, or the acceptance of negative stereotypes about one’s own racial group, is associated with psychological distress; yet, few studies have explored the longitudinal impact of internalized racism on the psychological well-being of African American emerging adults
While recent empirical research has documented the impact of racial discrimination on the psychological outcomes of African Americans (e.g., Priest et al, 2013), and attention to internalized racism has increased in the past decade (David et al, 2019), the unique impact of the other levels of racism as put forth by Jones (2000), and how internalized racism may interact with other race-related phenomena, such as racial identity beliefs, remains unclear
In addition to the simultaneous inclusion of all seven dimensions of racial identity at both waves in each model, all two-way internalized racism x racial identity interactions were modeled as covariates to test the effects of internalized racism and racial identity at Wave 1 (W1) and their interaction on subsequent psychological distress at W3

Summary

Introduction

Internalized racism, or the acceptance of negative stereotypes about one’s own racial group, is associated with psychological distress; yet, few studies have explored the longitudinal impact of internalized racism on the psychological well-being of African American emerging adults. Initial levels of alteration of physical appearance, internalization of negative stereotypes, and hair change internalized racism beliefs were related to subsequent psychological distress, but only for those with certain levels of racial centrality, private regard, public regard, and assimilationist, humanist, and nationalist ideology beliefs These findings suggest that, over time, internalized racism and racial identity beliefs can combine to influence the psychological well-being of African American emerging adults. A well-known protective factor against the negative mental health effects of racism-related stress (Neblett et al, 2012), may protect against the negative effects of internalized racism, but empirical support is limited To address this gap, this study explored the longitudinal impact of internalized racism dimensions on psychological distress associated with depressive and anxiety symptoms and the moderating role of racial identity in a sample of African American emerging adults. The challenges that African American young adults face, combined with the developmental tasks of emerging adulthood, highlight the need to explore African American emerging adults’ experiences of internalized racism

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