Through the lens of psychological empowerment: A closer look at everyday racism.

In recent years, researchers have begun to explore previously neglected aspects of racism. In addition to investigating responses to and outcomes of experiencing racism, studies have also focused on understanding subtle, racially motivated degradations or exclusions. These degradations are otherwise known as everyday racism. In response to experiences of everyday racism some individuals employ strategies that are similar to psychological empowerment, and include cognitions, awareness, and behaviors that focus on regaining control. To date, there have been no efforts to organize these responses within the framework of psychological empowerment. This research explored the concept of psychological empowerment to understand the relationship between everyday racism and mental health outcomes for 158 African American men and women. The average age of respondents was 33-years old. Sixty-seven percent of the sample were women and 32.3% were men. The guiding objectives for the study were two-fold. First, the research sought to develop an empirically sound measure of psychological empowerment against everyday racism. Second, the study used this newly developed psychological empowerment measure to examine the relationship between experiences of everyday racism and mental health. Confirmatory factor analyses with the Everyday Racism Empowerment Scale (Stovall, 1998) demonstrated that there are three distinct components of psychological empowerment: intrapersonal, interactional, and behavioral. Second-order factor analysis of these components yielded an empirically sound overall construct of psychological empowerment. Hierarchical regression analyses indicated that while psychological empowerment does not moderate relationships between depression and coping style, it does contribute to significant models that measure the relationship between depression and experiences of everyday racism, and coping style and experiences of racism. Results indicate that psychological empowerment contributes to a more complex understanding of the relationship between experiences of everyday racism and mental health. Implications for micro, meso, and macro level empowerment interventions are discussed. These interventions include suggestions for psychotherapists working with individuals, families, and groups. Other suggestions incorporate psychological empowerment concepts with traditional strengths in the African American community to educate larger numbers of people about using empowerment strategies to manage experiences of everyday racism.Ph.D.Black studiesClinical psychologyEthnic studiesPsychologySocial SciencesSocial psychologyUniversity of Michigan, Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studieshttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/131800/2/9929963.pd