10.1177/0095798405283175JOURNAL OF BLACK PSYCHOLOGY / FEBRUARY 2006Combs et al. / PAR NOIA AND PERCEIVED ACISM Perceived Racism as a Predictor of Paranoia Among African Americans

Recent theoretical models suggest that perceived racism acts as a stressor for African Americans and may be associated with a variety of negative psychologi-cal consequences, notably paranoia. Paranoia among African Americans is be-lieved to reflect the lower end of the paranoia continuum based on experiences with racism. Thus, it may be beneficial to measure paranoia on a continuum, but few studies have adopted this strategy. This study examined the relationship be-tween perceived racism and paranoia across the continuum in 128 African Amer-ican college students. Participants completed three measures of paranoia and measures of perceived racism, depression, anger, self-consciousness, and hostile perceptions. The continuum of paranoia included measures reflecting cultural, nonclinical, and clinical paranoia. Perceived racism predicted cultural mistrust and nonclinical paranoia (lower end of the paranoia continuum) but not clinical paranoia. The implications of perceived racism in the prediction of paranoia for African Americans are discussed