A Theoretical Development of the Relationship Between Ethnic Identity and Psychological Health

This research aimed to clarify the relationship between ethnic identity and psychological health by addressing two theoretical issues. First, the construct of ethnic identity was conceptualized by distilling the underlying developmental process theorized in past work to generate a secure, stable, and positively defined self-concept, and to thus lead to improved psychological health. This developmental process, or ethnic identity achievement, occurs as people develop a commitment to their ethnic group derived from exploring its meanings and social significance. With this conceptualization in hand, two theoretical processes connecting ethnic identity achievement to improved psychological health were tested: identity change and the development of positive relations with other ethnic groups. Ethnic identity achievement was theorized to foster improved psychological health by facilitating a definitional change in one's ethnic identity to one that is more likely to positively evaluated and verified, thus contributing to a stable and positively defined self-concept. In addition, the process of ethnic identity achievement was theorized to improve psychological health by fostering a more sophisticated understanding of how relations with other ethnic groups are informed by social context, and thus leading to a greater appreciation of other ethnic groups and a diminished likelihood to perceive interactions with other groups as threatening. Using survey data drawn from an ethnically diverse sample of college students (N = 427), these processes were tested with structural equation modeling. The results showed that the theoretical model, specified by both processes, adequately fit the data and that the hypothesized path coefficients were generally supported. The final chapter discusses the theoretical contributions to the ethnic identity literature, identity theory and social identity theory, while closing with directions for future research