Risk or resilience? Exploring the factors that influence the psychosocial functioning of Black immigrant-descended youth

Current studies have found that racial socialization has important implications for African American adolescents’ psychological and social functioning. However, Black immigrant-descended youth displayed greater psychological vulnerability to perceived discrimination than their African American peers (Seaton, Caldwell, Sellers, & Jackson, 2008). This recent data suggests that socialization messages regarding ethnic and racial groups may have divergent implications for subsequent mental health outcomes. Thus, systematic research is needed examining Black immigrant-descended youth’s socialization with respect to both ethnicity and race. Such studies may also elucidate the role of ethnic and racial socialization as potential risk and/or protective factors in the functioning of Black immigrant descended youth who encounter discrimination. The first aim of the current study was to separately explore the factor structure of an ethnic and racial socialization measure to assess whether they replicated the 3-factor structure of Hughes & Chen’s (1997) original measure. Employing a sample of 186 participants of Black immigrant descent, the exploratory factor analysis revealed that the 3-factor structure replicated across both the ethnic and racial socialization measures. The intercorrelations between the two measures demonstrated that they were not redundant; rather, the two measures were able to capture distinct aspects of racial and ethnic socialization, respectively. Employing the same sample of Black immigrant-descended youth, the second aim of this study sought to explore the potentially moderating role of ethnic and racial socialization in the relationship between perceived discrimination and psychological functioning. The findings revealed that receiving few ethnic cultural socialization messages was associated with symptoms of anxious arousal when faced with discrimination. This exacerbating effect was not as strong when participants reported receiving more frequent ethnic cultural socialization messages. Additionally, participants who received few racial preparation for bias messages also reported symptoms of anxiety when faced with discrimination. However, this moderating role was less influential under conditions of frequent racial preparation for bias. Lastly, participants who reported receiving a high frequency of ethnic promotion of mistrust messages directed at non-ethnic group endorsed symptoms of anxiety when faced with discrimination. The same was true for participants who reported receiving a high frequency of racial promotion of mistrust messages directed at non-racial group members. However, the moderating effect was not as strong under conditions of infrequent ethnic or racial promotion of mistrust messages. These findings provide preliminary evidence that ethnic and racial socialization may have differing implications for outcomes among individuals of Black immigrant descent. This suggests that future studies should separately examine ethnic and racial socialization, as well as their associated correlates, rather than confounding these two concepts. Additional findings and suggestions for future research are also discussed