Racial discrimination predicts mental health outcomes beyond the role of personality traits in a community sample of African Americans.

Despite a consistent body of work documenting associations between racial discrimination and negative mental health outcomes, the utility and validity of these findings have recently been questioned as some posit that personality traits may account for these associations. To test this hypothesis in a community sample of African Americans (=419, age=43.96), we used bivariate relations and hierarchical regression analyses to determine whether racial discrimination accounted for additional variance in depression, anxiety, and posttraumatic stress symptoms beyond the role of personality. Bivariate relations between personality traits and racial discrimination were small and positive (i.e.,s = ~.10). Regression results demonstrated that racial discrimination accounted for variance in depression, anxiety and posttraumatic stress independent of personality traits (s<.01). These results suggest that personality traits do not fully explain associations between racial discrimination and negative mental health outcomes, further supporting the detrimental impact of racial discrimination on the mental health of African Americans.