St. John's University, 8000 Utopia Parkway, Jamaica, NY, 11439, United States.
Rutgers, The State University of NJ, Piscataway, NJ, 08854, United States.
Soc Sci Med. 2022 Jan;292:114558. doi: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2021.114558. Epub 2021 Nov 17.
Interpersonal racial/ethnic discrimination is a risk factor for depression across the lifespan in minoritized racial/ethnic groups. This study tests a model proposing that social cognitive processes, including relational schemas, mediate the link between discrimination and depression. Relational schemas enable individuals to form mental representations of others, reflecting prior social learning and generating expectations about future social relations. Racism-related relational schemas include, among others, concerns about being rejected or invalidated, concerns about confirming negative stereotypes held by others, and cynical mistrust of others. Prior studies have typically examined the mediating role of one or two relational schemas in the association between discrimination and depression; less is known about the unique and combined effects of multiple dimensions of racism-related social cognition.
The model was tested in a convenience sample of ethnically diverse, non-white participants recruited from two sites, a community medical center (N = 136; M = 38, SD = 13.0) and a private university (N = 120; M = 19.4, SD = 1.3), yielding a consolidated sample of 256 participants (64% women). Data were collected between September 2016 and April 2018. Participants completed paper-and-pencil self-report measures of exposure to interpersonal discrimination, depressive symptoms, and eight measures of relational schemas.
Confirmatory factor analysis indicated that the eight relational schemas defined three primary dimensions: concerns about rejection and invalidation, social vigilance, and mistrust. A structural equation model in which the association between exposure to discrimination and depressive symptoms operates through latent factors representing three social-cognitive dimensions demonstrated adequate fit (CFI = 0.96, RMSEA = 0.06, SRMR = 0.04). A significant mediational effect was found only for concerns about rejection and invalidation.
The conceptual model supported by this study may help inform psychological interventions aimed at mitigating the detrimental effects of racial/ethnic discrimination on mental health.
人际种族/民族歧视是少数族裔群体在整个生命周期中抑郁的一个风险因素。本研究测试了一个模型，该模型提出社会认知过程，包括关系图式，在歧视和抑郁之间的联系中起中介作用。关系图式使个体能够形成对他人的心理表现，反映先前的社会学习并产生对未来社会关系的期望。与种族主义有关的关系图式包括但不限于对被拒绝或被否定的担忧、对他人持有的负面刻板印象的确认的担忧以及对他人的愤世嫉俗的不信任。先前的研究通常检查了一个或两个关系图式在歧视和抑郁之间的关联中的中介作用；关于与种族主义有关的社会认知的多个维度的独特和综合影响，知之甚少。
该模型在从两个地点（社区医疗中心（N=136；M=38，SD=13.0）和私立大学（N=120；M=19.4，SD=1.3）招募的种族多样化的非白人参与者的便利样本中进行了测试，得出了 256 名参与者的综合样本（64%为女性）。数据收集于 2016 年 9 月至 2018 年 4 月之间。参与者完成了关于人际歧视、抑郁症状和八项关系图式的纸笔自我报告测量。
验证性因素分析表明，八项关系图式定义了三个主要维度：对拒绝和否定的担忧、社会警惕性和不信任。在一个结构方程模型中，歧视与抑郁症状之间的关联通过代表三个社会认知维度的潜在因素运行，该模型显示出了适当的拟合度（CFI=0.96，RMSEA=0.06，SRMR=0.04）。仅发现对拒绝和否定的担忧存在显著的中介效应。
本研究支持的概念模型可能有助于为旨在减轻种族/民族歧视对心理健康的不利影响的心理干预措施提供信息。
