Ethnic-racial identity and hazardous drinking among black drinkers: A test of the minority stress model.

Black Americans who consume alcohol experience negative alcohol-related outcomes, indicating a need to identify psycho-sociocultural factors that may play a role in drinking and related problems to inform prevention and treatment. Although lower levels of ethnic-racial identity (ERI) are related to negative drinking outcomes, this is the first known test of whether psychological distress and drinking to cope with distress play a role in these relations. Participants were 155 Black current drinking undergraduates at a racially/ethnically diverse university. ERI was significantly, negatively correlated with drinking frequency, drinking problems, coping motivated drinking, depression, and social anxiety. ERI was unrelated to drinking quantity. ERI was indirectly related to drinking and related problems via the sequential effects of depression and coping motivated drinking, but not via depression or coping motives alone. ERI was indirectly related to drinking via the sequential effects of social anxiety and coping motivated drinking, and indirectly related to drinking problems via social anxiety but not via coping motives alone. In line with minority stress-based models, ERI is related to less negative drinking outcomes (less frequent drinking, fewer problems) via less psychological distress (depression, social anxiety) and less coping motivated drinking. Also, social anxiety was robustly related to drinking frequency and problems among Black drinkers, a group that has been underrepresented in the social anxiety-drinking literature. This finding indicates that anxiety about social situations may play an especially important role in drinking behaviors in this group.