Racial Discrimination and Risk Behavior Among African American Young Adults

描述（由申请人提供）：非洲裔美国年轻人代表了一个非常容易受到危险行为影响的人群，包括物质使用和依赖。尽管这种脆弱性的紧迫性，仍然有有限的理解的独特因素，在这一人群中的风险行为的基础。研究表明，种族歧视是导致非裔美国年轻人出现风险行为的一个关键变量，特别是以社会排斥形式出现的种族歧视。此外，有人认为，这种关系的鲁棒性可能会受到一个人的种族身份的影响，一些证据表明，种族歧视对风险行为的影响可能会被缓冲作为一个更完整的种族身份的函数。为此目的，本申请建议审查种族歧视的影响，在压力的形式产生的经验，社会拒绝冒险倾向的非洲裔美国年轻人。具体来说，我们在完成一个虚拟的社会排斥模拟后，比较了实验室风险测量的风险承担倾向（即，Cyberball）。社会排斥将是 表现为标准格式（一般社会排斥压力），强调种族歧视的格式（歧视-特定的社会排斥压力），或不表现为没有 应力条件此外，我们的目标是了解歧视特定的社会拒绝压力的背景下，通过测试种族身份（高集成的身份与低集成的身份）的潜在调节作用的保护因素。我们假设冒险行为 在一般社会排斥压力条件下的人比在没有压力条件下的人更大，无论种族身份融合如何。此外，对于那些在歧视特定的社会拒绝压力条件下，风险承担将受到综合种族认同水平的调节;具体来说，这一群体的风险承担将低于一般群体。 社会排斥应激组与无应激组在高整合认同者中相当，低整合认同者高于这两组。这项创新研究的意义在于：1）使用基于实验室的设置，限制了混杂变量的影响，2）使用经过充分验证的新颖行为评估，该评估已被证明与冒险行为（包括物质使用）相关，3）潜在的隔离， 减少冒险行为的理论上相关的保护因素，以及4）对将评估扩展到真实的世界风险行为的未来工作的影响。符合NIDA的战略计划，以更好地了解药物滥用的种族/少数民族，从拟议的研究结果也将被用来证明可行性和支持证据，为未来的R21，将扩大这项研究，包括更大的样本非洲裔美国人以及其他种族/少数民族群体，以检查这种模式的特异性。因此，拟议的研究是解决非洲裔美国年轻人和冒险的重要脆弱性因素的第一步，并可能提出一个目前未充分利用的干预目标。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): African American young adults represent a population highly vulnerable to risk behavior including substance use and dependence. Despite the urgency of this vulnerability, there remains limited understanding of the unique factors that underlie risk behavior among this population. Research indicates that racial discrimination is a key variable contributing to the emergence of risk behavior among African American young adults, with particular relevance of racial discrimination in the form of social rejection. Moreove, it has been suggested that the robustness of this relationship may be influenced by one's racial identity, with some evidence indicating that the impact of racial discrimination on risk behavior may be buffered as a function of a more integrated racial identity. Towards this end, this application proposes to examine the impact of racial discrimination in the form of stress ensuing from an experience of social rejection on risk-taking propensity among African American young adults. Specifically, we compare risk-taking propensity on a laboratory measure of risk taking after completing a virtual analogue of social rejection (i.e., Cyberball). Social rejection will be manifested in either a standard format (general social rejection stress), a format that highlights racial discrimination (discrimination- specific social rejection stress), or not manifested in a no stress condition. Moreover, we aim to understand protective factors in the context of discrimination-specific social rejection stress by testing the potential moderating effect of racia identity (high integrated identity vs. low integrated identity). We hypothesize risk taking will be greater for those in the general social rejection stress condition compared to those in the no stress condition, regardless of racial identity integration. Moreover, for those in the discrimination-specific social rejection stress condition, risk taking will be moderated by level o integrated racial identity; specifically, risk taking for this group will be lower than the general social rejection stress group and equal to the no stress group for those with high integrated identity and higher than both of these groups for those with low integrated identity. The significance of this innovative study lies in: 1) use of a laboratory-based setting which limits th impact of confounding variables, 2) use of a well validated and novel behavioral assessment that has been shown to be related to risk taking including substance use, 3) potential isolation of a theoretically-relevant protective factor for reducing risk taking behavior, and 4) impact on future work expanding the assessment to real world risk behavior. Consistent with NIDA's strategic plan to better understand substance abuse among racial/ethnic minorities, the findings from the proposed study will be also used to demonstrate feasibility and supporting evidence for a future R21 that will expand this research to include larger samples of African Americans as well as other racial/ethnic minority groups to examine the specificity of this model. Thus, the proposed research represents the first step in addressing an important vulnerability factor for African American young adults and risk taking, and could suggest an intervention target that is currently underutilized.