Collaborative Proposal: Developmental Mechanisms of African American Ethnic and Racial Identity During the Transition to Adulthood

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This project will examine the multifaceted ways in which African American ethnic identity and racial identity (ERI) - the personal significance and meaning of race and ethnicity to an individual - shapes the association between racial discrimination experiences and biopsychosocial development during the transition to adulthood. Specific aims of the study are to investigate whether ERI mitigates or worsens the association between racial discrimination and development as well as identify mechanisms by which ERI influences development during the transition to adulthood. This project will improve understanding of how ERI operates and the role social context plays in the associations between racial discrimination and development. The project will also address theoretical debates about the presumed positive impact of ERI. Developmental outcomes during the transition to adulthood will be assessed using questionnaires and physiological stress reactivity tests. Broader impacts are significant, because findings can be used to improve the social and psychological well-being of vulnerable youth. Moreover, findings can potentially support and further evidence-based prevention-intervention efforts aimed at fostering positive youth development.Racial discrimination constitutes a significant risk to the healthy development of African American youth during the transition to adulthood. Some evidence suggests that ERI protects against the harmful effects of racial discrimination, but there have been few systematic attempts to disentangle mixed findings. Participants will be African American young adults attending a southeastern, predominantly White institution and a mid-Atlantic historically Black college/university. Students will complete a series of questionnaires assessing key study variables followed by two laboratory challenges, once a year, for three consecutive years. Autonomic reactivity (as indexed by cardiovascular psychophysiology) will be assessed during the laboratory challenges. The central questions of the study are whether the protective or vulnerability function of ERI is influenced by the social context in which the youth are embedded and whether the impact of ERI on biopsychosocial development can be explained by coping skills, self-esteem, and perceptions of racial discrimination. Key hypotheses are: 1) ERI will act as a vulnerability factor in the link between racial discrimination and development in contexts with lower levels of diversity; 2) Initial levels of racial discrimination will lead to changes in ERI, which, in turn, will be associated with changes in development; and 3) Racism appraisals and coping will explain the association between ERI and changes in development during the transition to adulthood. Hypotheses will be tested using latent growth curve modeling. These results will be used to inform recommendations for the development of a contextually-tailored pilot ERI intervention.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.