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The relationship of hardiness and racial identity attitudes to the articulated thoughts and psychological impact of simulated racism encounters
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The relationship of hardiness and racial identity attitudes to the articulated thoughts and psychological impact of simulated racism encounters
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THE RELATIONSHIP OF HARDINESS AND RACIAL IDENTITY ATTITUDES
TO THE ARTICULATED THOUGHTS AND PSYCHOLOGICAL
IMPACT OF SIMULATED RACISM ENCOUNTERS
Copyright 2001
by
Jennifer Lauren Best
A Thesis Presented to the
FACULTY OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOL
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
In Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Degree
MASTER OF ARTS
(PSYCHOLOGY)
August 2001
Jennifer Lauren Best
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UMI Number: 1409578
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UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
The Graduate School
University Park
LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA 90089-1695
This thesi s, w ritten by
~^€y\r\\4e'C • ‘' € > € S * t ~ _____________
U nder the direction o f bJ££. Thesi s
Com m i ttee, and approved b y a ll its members,
has been presented to and accepted b y The
G raduate School , in p a rtia l fu lfillm e n t o f
requi rem ents fo r the degree o f
Mas+er o-f Ar4-s
Dean o f Graduate Studies
Date August 7, 2001
THESIS C O M M ITTEE
c
Chairperson
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ii
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank my graduate school advisor, Dr. Gerald C. Davison for all of his support
and guidance throughout all of the phases of the research process over the past two years. I would
also like to thank my other committee members, Dr. Shannon E. Daley and Dr. Joseph B. Hellige for
their very helpful comments, questions and consultations that aided in getting this project off of the
ground. Many thanks further go to Dr. Jonathan Kellerman for helping to fund this study. I am also
very grateful to my hard working research assistants, Mirny Mac, Corina Carbajal, Anna Levina, Kendra
Brown, Michelle Castruita, Pamela Moreno and Rosa Toro for their diligence, perseverance, and long
hours that saw the study go from a proposal on paper to being actualized in running participants,
data entry and content analysis. Finally I wanted to express my gratitude to m y fellow lab mates
Wendy Fung, Nadine Recker and Krista Barbour for lending an ear and for offering their technical
support during the course of this project.
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Table of Contents
Acknowledgements.........................................................................................................ii
List of Tables.................................................................................................................. iv
List of Figures.................................................................................................................v
Abstract...........................................................................................................................vi
Introduction..................................................................................................................... 1
Method............................................................................................................................. 36
Results............................................................................................................................. 49
Discussion and Implications...........................................................................................83
Conclusions and Limitations........................................................................................... 105
References....................................................................................................................... 109
Appendix.......................................................................................................................... 116
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List of Tables
Table Page
1 Inter-rater Reliability Coefficients for AT5S Dependent
Variables.......................................................................................................... 49
2 Descriptive Statistics for Hardiness and Racial Identity
Attitude Dependent Variables.........................................................................53
3 Descriptive Statistics for PANAS, RSE, COPE and Post
study Dependent Variables.............................................................................54
4 Descriptive Statistics for AT5S Dependent Variables by
Racism Condition.............................................................................................60
5 Intercorrelations Between Hardiness and Racial Identity
Attitude Dependent Variables........................................................................ 69
6 Intercorrelations Between Hardiness, PANAS, RSE and
Post-study Dependent Variables....................................................................70
7 Intercorrelations Between Racial Identity Attitude,
PANAS, RSE and Post-study Dependent Variables...................................... 71
8 Intercorrelations Between Hardiness and ATSS Index
Dependent Variables.......................................................................................74
9 Intercorrelations Between Racial Identity Attitude and
ATSS Index Dependent Variables.................................................................. 75
10 Intercorrelations Between ATSS Index, Post-PANAS,
Post-RSE and Post-study Dependent Variables........................................... 80
1 1 Intercorrelations Between ATSS Coping Index and
COPE Composite Dependent Variables......................................................... 82
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V
List of Figures
Figure Page
1 Racism Scenario by Articulated Affect Expression
Interaction..........................................................................................................61
2 Racism Scenario by Articulated Coping Intention
Interaction..........................................................................................................65
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vi
Abstract
Racial discrimination is a stressor that many African Americans must continuously face.
Racist events may take many forms: reflecting chronic daily encounters, more acute instances of
racially-motivated hate activity as well as within-group discriminatory experiences. The Articulated
Thoughts in Simulated Situations (ATSS) paradigm was utilized in this investigation to explore
potential differences in the affective experiences and coping intentions between groups of African
American and biracial women of African American heritage while encountering different types (i.e.
individual, collective, intra-ethnic) of racist scenarios. The relationships of individual differences in
racial identity attitudes and hardiness to participants’ articulated affect and coping cognitions during
the ATSS encounters were assessed. Further, the links among attitudes about racial identity, hardy
beliefs and aspects of participants’ post-ATSS psychological functioning (i.e. positive and negative
affect, self-esteem) were examined. Analyses demonstrated several significant findings. Firstly, the
African American participants more strongly endorsed having an internalized black identity than did
the biracial participants. Secondly, the African American women reported more positive thoughts
following the ATSS racism scenarios in comparison with their biracial counterparts. Significant
differences were also found among the emotions and coping intentions evoked by the different types
of racial discrimination scenarios. The collective racism encounter for example, elicited greater anger,
fear and problem-focused coping articulations than did the other two ATSS discrimination conditions.
In addition, racial identity attitudes and hardiness were shown to be strong correlates to ATSS coping
intentions. Hardiness was also positively related to more adaptive psychological outcome indicators
(i.e. self-esteem) reported in the immediate aftermath of the simulated racist encounters.
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Introduction
To live with the threat of racism means planning, almost every day of one’s life,
how to avoid or defend oneself against discrimination. (Essed, 1990 p. 260)
Specific Aims
Negative attitudes and beliefs regarding race permeate several sectors of society both here
in the United States as well as internationally (Essed, 1990; Currer, 1984). The impact of
discriminatory acts founded in racial prejudice is a chronic stressor that many African Americans today
must confront in their daily lives. Many theoretical models and scientific investigations have
accumulated over the past several decades principally aimed at articulating the nature and causes of
prejudiced beliefs (see Duckitt, 1992 for a comprehensive review). Interestingly, more recent work
has focused on the targets of such beliefs, endeavoring to elucidate both the type and efficacy of
strategies African Americans employ in order to assuage the potentially detrimental consequences of
racial prejudice and racist discriminatory practices (Feagin & Sikes, 1994; Brown, 1998; States,
1994).
However, there is a dearth of systematic research that has examined the modes and
effectiveness of coping with racism among biracial individuals of African American descent. It is
especially unclear as to how an internalized biracial identity may influence both the experience of and
the means with which such individuals deal with racial discrimination. Additionally, little empirical work
has been done on the relationships that individual difference factors such as hardiness and specific
racial identity attitudes may have with the psychological impact during and immediately following
racially stressful encounters. Lastly, theory and retrospective evidence suggest the existence of
specific types of coping strategies utilized during different types of racial discrimination occurrences
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2
(States, 1994; Feagin et al., 1994; Plummer & Slane, 1996). However, it remains to be explored how
particular instances of racism (e.g. everyday, common encounters v. less typical racially-motivated
hate crimes) may evoke different coping intentions and affective responses while actually experiencing
such events. Further, experimentally investigating the affective quality and coping methods employed
during intra-ethnic discriminatory situations is scientific terrain that has yet to be examined.
The purpose of this study therefore was five-fold:
1. To examine potential differences in the psychological experiences both during as well as
in the aftermath of racist encounters between African Americans and biracial individuals
of African American heritage.
2. To articulate differences in the emotional and coping reactions elicited by experimentally
varying the types of racial discrimination events.
3. To describe the relationship between the kinds of affect expressed and the coping
methods that people intend to use during racially stressful situations.
4. To examine the links between racial identity attitudes, hardiness and the psychological
experiences of racism.
5. To assess how these individual difference variables were related to psychological
outcome indices following encounters with racial prejudice and discrimination.
The discussion will now turn to a brief overview of the relevant scientific and clinical
literatures that underlie the rationale for this examination.
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Racism Definitions
Racism, which has as an essential feature the presumption of the superiority of a particular
race, has been conceptualized as consisting of three main forms (Essed, 1990; Jones, 1997). First of
all, individual racism, which is highly akin to racial prejudice, involves “discrimination, specifically in the
areas of private relationships (neighborhoods, acquaintances, choice of friendships) and informal
contact (people on the street or in stores)” (Essed, 1990 p. 24). More specifically, when an African
American individual is denied housing by a racist landlord, he or she is said to be the victim of an
individualized form of racism.
Institutional racism denotes discriminatory practices by businesses, corporations, colleges
and the like that aim to maintain racist advantages or privileges over others (Jones, 1997). This is a
natural extension of individually held racist beliefs that are aimed at keeping intact a power differential
between racial groups institutionally. This is most clearly exemplified in the debate over whether or
not standardized tests such as the SAT are biased against individuals from minority groups who may
not have had the formal exposure to the type of material that is included on this examination, thus
placing them at a disadvantage when college admissions are decided.
Cultural racism is the composite of the other forms of racism just described. In this type of
racism, the inferiority of one group’s cultural practices, traditions or heritage is promoted. Several
researchers have provided working definitions of culture, a multidimensional construct, and have
suggested specific factors, variables and dimensions on which cultural groups may vary (Jones,
1997). For example if a predominantly white college is having a “culture day” in which art and food
are being displayed and offered and black groups’ artistic and culinary entries are prevented from
being submitted, this would exhibit a form of cultural racism.
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Essed (1990) built upon this tripartite formulation of racism by suggesting the presence of a
collective facet as well. Collective racism involves the restriction of minority groups’ rights (such as
blacks) by organized or semi-organized groups. An illustration of this component of the interaction of
racist beliefs and behaviors would be if a neo-Nazi group physically harassed a group of African
Americans who were peacefully demonstrating. This final category of racism would include many of
the racially-motivated hate crime activity perpetrated by multiple individuals against members of
minority groups such as African Americans. Hate crime definitions and legislation are hotly debated
issues in the sociopolitical and legal arenas today (Levin & McDevitt, 1993).
Prejudice and Racism as Psychological Stressors
Essed (1990) and Feagin et al. (19 94 ) have asserted that racial prejudice and
discrimination are an ever-present potential source of stress and degradation that individuals of
African heritage may contend with in their daily lives. These qualitative works examined the day-to-
day experience of racism among African American and Surinamese women living in the Dutch
Netherlands and among black middle class individuals in the U.S. respectively. This concept of
“everyday racism” describes the innumerable contexts within which persons of African descent must
be prepared to encounter racial discrimination each day.
Ethnographic interview data from 209 respondents living in various cities across the country
further revealed the following four hypotheses: (1 ) racism can be conceptualized as a concrete, lived
experience; (2) the impact of racism is cumulative, in that its effects transcend individuals to families
and communities; (3 ) repetitious confrontations with racism directly shape and have a lasting effect
on how one conceives of him or herself, the way in which one interacts with others throughout life and
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how one internalizes their understanding of how the world works; and (4) day-to-day experiences of
racism continuously highlight how deeply ingrained and inescapable racism is institutionally (Feagin et
al., 1994). One interviewee's response eloquently delineated this constant plight:
I don’t think white people, generally, understand the full meaning of racist discriminatory
behaviors directed toward Americans of African descent. They seem to see each act of
discrimination or any act of violence as an “isolated” event. As a result, most white
Americans cannot understand the strong reaction manifested by blacks when such events
occur. They feel that blacks “overreact". They forget that in most cases, we live lives of quiet
desperation generated by a litany of daily large and small events that, whether or not by
design, remind us of our “place” in American society. (Feagin et al., 1994 p. 23-24)
Individuals encounter racist activity as a daily hassle in such public places as restaurants, shopping
centers and hotels, in the educational arena and in the business venue (Feagin et al., 1994).
Additionally, researchers have interviewed a group of black middle class professionals,
providing further evidence of the psychological impact of having to deal with racism on a daily basis.
From the participants’ responses the author identified the “dozen demons”, or specific categories of
ways in which African Americans may be psychologically affected by racist beliefs and stereotypes in
everyday interactions with whites (see Jones, 1997 for a review). Some of these demons include:
“exclusions from the club”, “low expectations”, “faint praise”, “presumption of failure”, “coping
fatigue” and “pigeonholing”(see lones, 1997 for a review). In essence, respondents in this
comprehensive study have intimated the continuous struggle they endure each day with instances of
racial discrimination that have the insidious potential to engender feelings of inadequacy, anger and
hopelessness.
Belatedly, an “invisibility syndrome" has emerged as a relevant concern in the psychological
treatment of African American men (Franklin & Boyd-Franklin, 2 00 0). This condition refers to the
overriding belief that chronic racism undermines a person’s sense of identity and self-efficacy. Other
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scientists have emphasized the stress associated with racism as an agent in the development of
specific emotional and cognitive disturbances among African Americans (see Utsey & Ponterotto,
19% for a review). Thus, there is a plethora of evidence in support of the deleterious psychological
impact of chronic racism. However, little research has aimed to articulate the psychological effects
associated with acute, traumatic instances of racially-biased crimes and how they may differ from
more everyday forms of racial discrimination.
The United States Department of Justice (1990) defines a “hate crime” as any criminal
offense that is perpetrated against an individual, group or property due to race, religion, sexual
orientation or ethnicity. The prevalence of hate acts is purported to be rising rapidly in the general
public (Levin et al., 1993) as well as on university campuses (Downey & Stage, 1999). However due
to both the challenges of accurately quantifying criminal activity founded in bias as well as
standardizing definitions of hate crimes across different states, current statistics may be
underestimations of the phenomenon (Jacobs & Potter, 1998).
Although events typically reflecting racially-based hate crime activity within this country have
a long history, research examining the psychological effects of hate crimes on victims has begun to
receive much attention only in recent years (Herek & Berrill, 1992). This has largely been due to
socially-accepted notions that hate crimes are considered to be worse than other types of criminal
actions. Proponents of this idea have asserted that hate crimes are more psychologically debilitating
for the victim, incite greater retaliatory aggressive intent by the victim and may further entrench
feelings of distrust between the different ethnic and cultural groups living in this country (see Craig,
1999 for a review).
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Labeling a criminal act as a hate crime has important legal and clinical ramifications
regarding stricter penalties for perpetrators and perhaps specific treatments employed to aid in the
recovery from the potential stress and trauma incurred (Jacobs et al., 1998; Herek et al., 1992). It is
important to note here that no published, controlled comparison studies have directly supported
these socially-constructed claims. The small corpus of scientific work that does exist in this area has
primarily investigated homosexual hate victimization (Herek et al, 1992).
One noteworthy study, though, did attempt to quantify differences in the affective reactions
between African American and white males while watching either a racially-motivated assault or an
ambiguously-motivated violent act via videotape (Craig, 1999). Generally, across racial groups,
findings did not lend support to the belief that racist hate crimes would inflict greater negative
psychological effects on a “bystander". Both the European American and African American
participants showed similar levels of negative emotional responses in reaction to both the racist and a
non-racist physical assault.
Results specific to the hate-motivated violence condition did demonstrate however, that the
African American participants evidenced greater beliefs in the likelihood of such an encounter
happening to them and that such instances of racism were more common than did the white
participants. Furthermore, the black participants endorsed intentions to retaliate with higher frequency
than did their white counterparts when confronted with a racially-biased physical assault. Although this
investigation should be commended for the originality of its experimental design and its important
aims, future work may further build upon these findings.
For example, it would be of great interest to explore more in depth how ethnic minority
women react to instances of hate. It would also be fruitful to further document how the psychological
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experiences associated with racially-biased hate crimes may be influenced by being a victim rather
than being a witness or onlooker as was the case in this study. Finally, how do the psychological
reactions and coping intentions compare when faced with typical, everyday forms of racism versus
when encountering actual hate-based criminal activity?
Racism thus can be conceptualized in multiple ways. For instance it may define a specific,
traumatic hate incident or a chronic daily type stressor. Both forms of racism are associated with
cognitive, affective and behavioral distress for minority groups such as African Americans and
therefore warrant further careful scrutiny. It is apparent that a myriad of opportunities to encounter
instances of racial prejudice and discrimination are possible for many African Americans. Thus, it was
important for the current study to examine both what methods are used to cope effectively along with
what individual difference factors may beneficially affect the impact of stress on and perhaps the
recovery from especially traumatic racism experiences for black individuals.
Racial Identity Attitudes Among African Americans and Psychosocial Functioning
Theorists and researchers have proposed and empirically supported two main
developmental frameworks in describing the cultivation of racial identity among African Americans.
These widely-endorsed models presume that individuals progress through specific stages (Cross,
1971,1991) or statuses (Helms, 1995) toward Afrocentricity. This term describes an overall African
American-centered cultural orientation to one's self-concept. However, these models have been
reformulated over the years to allow for the flexibility of having persons go through the stages at
multiple points in their lives. This notion of having a dynamic construction of racial identity that must
continually be reassessed when it is challenged or questioned is a novel approach in this literature.
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There is some empirical support for this in that the context was shown to influence certain aspects of
racial identity among African Americans (Shelton & Sellers, 2 00 0). Furthermore Plummer (1996) in a
cross-sectional experimental design found that different stages of racial identity development were
more prominent in different life stages during the adolescence, young adulthood and middle
adulthood periods among African American groups.
Cross’( 1971) original Nigrescence or “becoming black” model devised five stages in the
development of an Afrocentric racial identity among black Americans. The initial pre-encounter stage
characterizes the black individual for whom race and issues regarding race are not very salient.
Additionally, the pre-encounter black person may be very oriented to the mainstream, white culture
and may have very negative attitudes about being black, seeing blackness as a stigma. Such persons
further tend to hold negative beliefs about other African American individuals. Originally, it was
hypothesized that black individuals in this particular stage (primarily the anti-black subtype) of
Afrocentricity were most vulnerable to psychological concerns and maladjustment. However, those
who have low salience of race in their racial identity are now posited as having the ability to have
more positive outcomes (Cross, 1995). Cross (1995) also relates the possibility that pre-encounter
African Americans may be more bicultural in their ethnic orientation.
The encounter stage is defined as the time when particular events challenge the black
person’s conceptions of the predominant Eurocentric cultural view. It is described as a time of
confusion and awakening for the black individual. The third stage of immersion/emersion indicates a
wholehearted alteration in perspective depicting a marked withdrawal from the mainstream white
orientation and solely embracing the themes of black culture. Persons at this stage are considered
very “pro-black/anti-white" in how they perceive and interact in the world.
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The fourth stage of internalization is a period of black pride and self-acceptance (Jones,
1997) in which the black individual is Afrocentrically-oriented and yet has an appreciation and
tolerance for other cultures (e.g. white mainstream). This is the embodiment of the self-confident,
well-integrated and self-satisfied black person. The last stage of internalization/commitment is just an
extension of the previous one in which the African American who is primarily oriented to black culture
and issues commits to such activities over the lifespan. Interestingly, Jones (1997) also associates
biculturalism with this ultimate stage of racial identity development as well.
Helms’ (1995) reformulation of her original (1990) model is marked by the progression
through five transactional statuses in the creation of an African American racial identity. This status
model closely maps onto Cross’ (1971) stage model. The statuses include conformity, dissonance.
immersion-emersion. internalization and integrative awareness (see Jones, 1997 for a review). Based
on these models Helms and Parham (1985) developed a self-report measure in order to assess
African Americans’ developmental attitudes about racial identity [the Racial Identity Attitude Scale-
Black Version (RIAS-B)].
Importantly, for purposes of this discussion, stages of racial identity development as
theorized by Cross (1971) and as indexed by scores on the RIAS-B have been significantly associated
with differences in coping style and the psychological and emotional functioning among groups of
black college students. For example, Parham and Helms (1985a) found a noteworthy association
between the pre-encounter stage and the immersion stage attitudes with reduced levels of self-
actualization and increased feelings of being inferior, anxious and hostile among African American
young adults. Further, encounter stage attitudes were positively related to self-actualization and the
negative psychological indicators in a reverse manner.
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in a similar study, low self-esteem was more highly correlated with the pre-encounter and
immersion attitude stages (Parham & Helms, 1985b). In further support of these findings, Carter
(19 91 ) explored the predictive power of stage of racial identity attitudes on self-reported
psychopathological symptoms in a group of black college students. Results indicated that the pre-
encounter stage was positively associated with paranoia, anxiety, memory impairment, hallucinations,
alcohol concerns and global psychological dysfunction.
Another study linked particular stages of racial identity attitudes to alexithymic psychological
components (Dinsmore & Mallinckrodt, 1996). Alexithymia is a phenomenon often apparent in
survivors of severe trauma whereby such individuals typically have great difficulty identifying, making
distinctions between and expressing their internal affective experiences (Dinsmore et al., 1 9% ). This
construct has been studied in concentration camp survivors as well as in survivors of dysfunctional,
abusive relationships (see Dinsmore et al., 1996 for a review).
It is unclear as to whether or not similar symptoms (e.g. lack of personal emotional
awareness) would be evidenced by individuals as a result of encountering chronic racism stressors or
acute racist hate crime events where physical harm is threatened or performed. However findings
from this study suggest that the earlier stages of racial identity attitudes (e.g. pre-encounter and
encounter) were strongly associated with alexithymic tendencies. Whereas, attitudes reflecting later
stages of racial identity (e.g. internalization) were negatively related to such symptoms. Racial identity
attitude stages have also been empirically related to levels of depression and self-esteem (Munford,
1994) and to differences in psychological well-being (Pyant & Yanico, 1991), self-concept (Wilson &
Constantine, 1999), anger expression (Boyce, 1997) and problem-solving coping (Neville, Heppner &
Wang, 1997) in African American cohorts.
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Based on this summary of findings, internalization attitudes in particular may be a useful
indicator for both successfully psychologically managing daily prejudicial stressors as well as
recovering from the potential trauma associated with more egregious racist encounters. While beliefs
representing earlier stages (e.g. pre-encounter, encounter, immersion) may be negative indicators of
psychological functioning in the aftermath of racially stressful incidents. In this way, racial identity
attitudes may also be useful in better understanding individual differences in the psychological
experiences and coping behaviors associated with specific instances of racial prejudice and
discrimination both common, everyday forms as well as less typical, racially-biased criminal events.
However, what are the implications of having a biracial identity on African American racial identity
attitudes and on psychosocial development? Additionally, how might biracialism be related to coping
with racially stressful situations?
Racial Identity Among Biracial Americans: Lability or Asset?
When you mix salt and pepper, it’s impossible to separate the grains. You have a new spice,
not just salt and not just pepper. The same is true when you’re interracial. (Brown, 1995
p. 129)
The continuously changing socio-cultural milieu of the United States may be especially
exemplified by the rapid rise in the frequency of interracial unions. With the final abolition of anti
miscegenation laws in the Supreme Court's hallmark decision, Loving v. Virginia (1967) there has
been a steady increase in the number of individuals from different racial heritages marrying and
having families. Most recent available data estimate approximately one million interracial marriages in
the U.S. as of the earfy 1990s and at least 2 million progeny of multiple racial descents (see Miller &
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13
Rotheram-Borus, 1994). These are conservative numbers as governmental census data only charts
those couples who are currently married. Furthermore, prior to Census 2000, the census form
required the respondent to choose one racial or ethnic category to describe their child’s racial
makeup. It bodes well for future analyses with the current census’s greater flexibility in assigning
racial and ethnic data for individuals (e.g. being able to check multiple boxes).
This significantly growing group of biracial individuals and their potentially specific needs
have been strikingly underexamined in both the theoretical and empirical literatures of the past. More
recently, largely as a result of clinical case studies, there have been more attempts to address the
following questions: (1) Are biracial individuals (specifically of African American descent) more
vulnerable to psychosocial adjustment problems by virtue of their dual racial heritage?; and (2) What
are the factors most associated with a healthy identity development among biracial persons?
Theorists and clinicians have postulated that biracial children may be especially susceptible
to the later development of emotional and behavioral problems because they must be prepared to
face rejection and discrimination from both the mainstream white culture as well as from their minority
black culture (Lyles, Yancey, Grace, & Carter, 1985). To illustrate this, a biracial child’s own words:
My skin is light, but I don’t like it the way that it is. Everybody kids me and calls me “mixed
zebra", “red-faced dog” and “black eyed pea.” I laugh, but it hurts. Black and White kids pick
on me. It’s rough being mixed.. .It does not mean I should not have friends. (Lyles, et al.,
1985)
This added “burden” is manifested when European Americans insist that these biracial children are
African American due largely to physical characteristics and are thus relegated to the sub-white status
of this group. Additionally, blacks either intentionally or are unaware of the "legitimacy tests” they
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require the unwitting biracial child to pass. In other words, in order to be considered “black enough”
biracial individuals must in effect deny or suppress acknowledgement of and allegiance to their white
racial heritage.
The clinical social work literature has revealed that referral problems among black-white
biracial children and adolescents have included sadness and depression, family conflict, social
isolation, aggressive behavior towards peers, negative attitudes towards adults and poor academic
performance (McRoy & Freeman, 1986). White other evidence suggests instances of alcohol abuse,
suicidal behaviors and psychosomatic concerns among biracial adolescents (Sebring, 1985).
Additionally, oftentimes resulting from the overprotectiveness of parents in attempting to shield their
children from societal negativity, it has also been found that biracial individuals of African American
and European American descent have felt largely unprepared to deal with the realities of prejudice
and racism (Winn & Priest, 1993). Relatedly, researchers have suggested that racial prejudice and
discrimination can significantly interfere with the cultivation of a positive racial identity among biracial
children (Shackford, 1984).
However, the above findings were primarily assessed from clinical case accounts and/or from
studies that did not include a control group. Thus although there is some evidence of psychosocial
maladjustment among biracial youth it is not clear as to whether or not generalizations can be made
detailing their increased risk for such negative outcomes when compared to other age-matched
children of color (i.e. African American). In other words, is the psychosocial outlook for the biracial
child and adolescent more dire and bleak than their same age black counterparts?
In the attempt to address this question Cauce and colleagues (1992) as part of a larger
study interviewed biracial (primarily black-white) and black early adolescent individuals living in the
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Seattle area to assess different areas of psychosocial functioning. Although their study included a
small number of participants, it was unique among its related works by including a comparison group.
Interestingly, results revealed no significant differences among the two groups on measures of peer
relations, self-esteem, life stress and depression. Likewise, additional evidence exists which suggests
biracial adolescents may have comparable or higher self-esteem than their same age monoracial
black counterparts (Gibbs, 1989; iacobs, 1977).
Thus, what factors may be mediating the more positive versus negative psychosocial
outcomes of biracial children? Taking a multi-dimensional, socioecological approach, clinical theory
and research suggest the necessary and active contributions of parents, family, school and
neighborhood community in the healthy development of biracial children (see McRoy et al., 1986;
Pinderhughes, 1995 for reviews). Also it is purported that the nature of the racial identity label the
biracial individual assumes is integral to successful outcomes.
For example, Cauce et al. (1992) and others assert that difficulties in the formation of a
stable racial identity among biracial youth may in actuality “steel” them as opposed to debilitate them,
resulting in a more resilient constitution (Hall, 1980). In conjunction with this, others have learned
that the acceptance of a biracial status among biracial individuals is associated with reductions in
depression (Bowles, 1993) along with being associated with less conflict (Brown, 1995).
Furthermore, research suggests that although this conflict in alternating how biracial children and
adolescents identify with their parental heritages is psychologically stressful, it may be a necessary
part of the developmental process towards the ultimate formation of an integrated, healthy biracial
racial identity (Poston, 1990; Kich, 1992).
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While the previously described models (Cross, 1971; Helms, 1995) may provide a foundation
upon which to build further, it is not dear how applicable they are to individuals of multiple racial
descent. For this reason clinical researchers have devised working models incorporating the
potentially unique processes involved in the healthy development of racial identity among biracial
individuals. They are similar to the Cross (1 9 7 1 ,1 9 9 0 ) and Helms’ (1995) models in being
structured in the form of stages along with acknowledging both the stability and fluidity of biracial
identity formation over the lifespan. In this way identity is continuously re-examined and reformulated
throughout life and in different contexts.
Kich (1982) for example, as a result of his research with biracial adults of European
American and Japanese descent, proposed that biracial individuals progress through three main
stages toward the formation of a stable racial identity. The first stage is the initial awareness of the
discrepancy between self-perception and how others perceive them. The age range accompanying
this phase spans from ages 3 to 10. The second stage is marked by a struggle for acceptance by
others (reportedly occurring from ages 8 through late adolescence and early adulthood). The last
stage involves accepting oneself as a biracial and a bicultural individual. It was found that this final,
integrated identity was usually attained by late adolescence (see Kich, 1992 for a review).
Similarly, the main components of Poston’s (1990) more formal model of biracial identity
formation include the personal identity stage, where racial and ethnic group membership are not very
salient and the child’s sense of self is proposed to be separate from racial or ethnic background. The
second is choice of group categorization stage, where the biracial individual is often pressured to
choose a particular parent’s racial group to identify with which is mediated by several socioecological
factors. Thirdly, the enmeshment/denial stage is marked by guilt, disloyalty and confusion over having
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17
to choose one parent’s race over another. The appreciation stage includes the beginnings of valuing
a multi-racial heritage although the individual still identifies with one particular racial group. Finally,
the integration stage, characterizes the biracial individual who has developed a stable and integrated
racial identity.
It should be noted that these formulations are a much needed first step in examining the
phases of biracial identity development. Unlike the prevailing models of African American racial identity
formation, there does not exist a workable self-report measure that would map onto Poston’s five-
stage model for instance. Such a scale would be useful in further parsing out the relationship among
stage of racial identity development, adaptive psychosocial outcomes and effective coping styles. It
remains to be examined if identifying oneself with an integrated biracial label and valuing both
parental heritages as a meaningful part of their self-concept js related to more positive psychological
outcomes in the face of adversity (such as racial discrimination) as compared with an age-matched,
monoracial African American group.
A General Overview of Common Methods of Coping with Stress
Roth and Cohen (1986) provide a comprehensive review of the literature regarding
avoidance and approach strategies in coping with stress. The avoidance-approach dimension is
concerned primarily with defining styles of contending with life strain and threat that involve either
withdrawal from or confrontation with the stress-inducing stimulus or situation. Lazarus and Folkman
(19 84 ) have further added that a potential significant moderator to coping is how the circumstance is
appraised and that type of coping (avoidance v. approach) strategy may be dependent on the
perceived controllability of the stressor and level of threat. Roth et al. (1986) go on to discuss the
research that has demonstrated that avoidance techniques may be more beneficial in situations that
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are deemed less controllable and that approach methods are suggested to be more effective when
the event is changeable or controllable in some way. Thus avoidance may not necessarily be a
negative coping strategy in all contexts. These findings are consistent with Lazarus et al.’s (1984)
theory with regard to the influence of cognitive appraisal on the utilization of a particular coping style.
Another prominent dimension in the stress and coping literature describes the distinction
between problem-focused v. emotion-focused techniques (Folkman & Lazarus, 1980). Problem-
focused strategies principally involve attempting to directly change the stressor in some way while
emotion-focused strategies entail attempts to manage the feelings associated with the stressor
(Folkman et al., 1980). However, it has been shown that this particular theoretical division in coping
styles may not be so well-defined (see Carver, Scheier, & Weintraub, 1989 for a discussion).
Acknowledging the multi-dimensionality of coping, these authors have incorporated the approach-
avoidance as well as problem-focus-emotion-focus dimensions into a multi-component, theoretically-
derived self-report assessment of coping strategies (COPE; Carver et al., 1989). Some of the coping
parameters include scales of active coping, planning, restraint, seeking social support, positive
reinterpretation and growth, turning to religion, venting and denial.
Additionally, the coping process is said to be a dynamic one where depending on the context
a certain type of coping may be more effective than another (see Roth et al., 1986 for a review). In
this way it is purported that relying on one, rigid way of coping with different stressors may not be
most efficacious but rather, a more flexible approach to coping might be required (Roth et al., 1986).
However, there is a dearth of empirical work that has examined the differences in coping strategies
employed across dissimilar yet stressful situations in order to gain more insight regarding the
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relationship of situational variables to coping style. How might different stressful contexts (e.g. racist
encounters) influence using different coping methods?
Coping with Racial Prejudice and Discrimination
My first way of dealing with discrimination is usually.. .acting like it doesn’t exist.... You’ve
got to just know it’s there, do all you can to avoid it. (Feagin et al., 1994, p. 279)
Returning to the exploration of everyday racism among African American middle class
members, Feagin et al. (1 9 9 4 ) obtained extensive qualitative evidence that different coping
approaches are undertaken when racial discrimination is experienced. These strategies varied widely.
They included: introspectively examining and questioning the validity of the perceived mistreatment,
avoiding and withdrawing, resigning oneself, suppressing negative emotions, verbally and physically
confronting, teasing and provoking whites, consciously overachieving to prove oneself, relying on
humor or prayer, turning to one’s inner strength, turning to family and friends for support along with
in some instances taking legal action (Feagin et al., 1994). What this broad spectrum of ways of
managing reactions to situational racism highlights is that coping may take a cognitive and/or
behavioral form. Furthermore, coping is a multidimensional construct whereby the effectiveness of
certain types of coping may be contingent upon the situational demands. This theme regarding the
use of one, universal coping style across contexts (versus perhaps a more flexible, varied approach)
is an important one. The subsequent discussion describes the empirical work that has systematically
examined what types of coping processes have been employed in response to experiences with racial
prejudice and discrimination.
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Benjamin (1984) found significant differences in coping strategies when facing racial
prejudice and discrimination between clinically depressed and non-depressed black women. More
specifically, in-depth interviews with these community samples charted the positive and negative
factors associated with coping resources between groups. After thoughtful review of individuals’
exposure to and experience of prejudice and discrimination results indicated that in general, non
depressed women took a “love all humanity” positive approach and their depressed counterparts
instead often “did nothing” to cope with these situations over the years. Although this descriptive
study incorporated a clinical group in their comparison, results relied heavily on the retrospective self-
report of coping. Furthermore, instances of racial prejudice and discrimination were idiographic and
unstandardized varying from individual to individual and perhaps also varying in intensity. Lastly,
although differences were found between groups it may be that the state of being clinically depressed
has implications for how one remembers coping in racially stressful situations.
Another interview-based approach researched coping strategies in managing the effects of
racist encounters between groups of African American and Afro-Canadian individuals (States, 1994).
Although some differences were evidenced, in general more confrontational responses were believed
to be most effective in combating the negative impact of racism by both groups. Proactive and
empowered methods were thought of as more beneficial than emotional reaction styles and
internalizing blame. Other efficacious coping strategies included: educating the offender, creating
support systems, meditation and prayer, listening to music, exercising and overachievement. Less
effective coping strategies were marked by self-blame, rumination or dwelling, feelings of
poweriessness and defeat, denial of racism, physical aggression, violence, withdrawal and isolation.
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This particular investigation has provided descriptively rich data. However its limitations are similar to
the previously-described examination as well (retrospective, unstandardized racism situations).
Understandably it may be that different individuals both appraise and respond to different
everyday racist scenarios resulting in being differentially impacted by the incidents. With this in mind,
what is needed is a more focused look at how and why individuals differ in such circumstances.
Additionally, in attempting to better understand what coping styles are more or less useful in dealing
with racial prejudice and discrimination, the inclusion of some type of outcome measure of
psychosocial functioning (i.e. self-esteem, positive/negative affect) would be important.
Plummer and Slane (1 9 % ) compared coping styles used in racially stressful situations
between white and black groups using a self-report measure entitled The Ways of Coping
Questionnaire (WCQ; Folkman & Lazarus, 1988). Participants were instructed to fill out the scale while
thinking of both a specific, stressful instance involving race as well as to complete the WCQ while
thinking of a recent stressful event that did not involve race. The W CQ indexes coping along eight
factor-analytically derived subscales. These include confrontational coping, accepting responsibility,
seeking social support, planful problem solving, distancing, self-controlling, escape-avoidant coping
and positive reappraisal. The first four subscales are indices of problem-focused coping styles while
the latter four assess emotion-focused coping strategies.
Across groups, confrontational coping was differentially associated with type of stressor
whereby individuals of both groups used this type of style in racially stressful situations more than in
other instances of stress. Results further demonstrated differences in coping strategies between
participants of the two racial groups. More specifically, African American participants utilized higher
rates of both problem-focused and emotion-focused coping when compared to the European
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22
American group. Black individuals also used a greater number of coping methods in response to race-
related stress. Also of interest is the finding that in general, both problem-focused and emotion-
focused coping styles were used jess during specific instances of racial stress than were used in
dealing with more general life stressors.
Utsey and colleagues built upon existing research in this area by studying the relationship
between coping style, self-esteem, life satisfaction, racial stress and type of racism (institutional,
individual or cultural) experienced in a group of African American college students (Utsey &
Ponterotto, 2 00 0). Coping style was assessed by the Coping Strategy Indicator (CSI; Amirkhan,
1990). This self-report scale divides coping methods into three empirically-derived components,
problem-solving, seeking social support and avoidance. Similarly to the W C S, the CSI instructs
participants to have a specific event in mind in responding to the questionnaire’s items. The Index of
Race-Related Stress (IRRS; Utsey & Ponterotto, 1996) was used to measure the stress associated
with different types of racial prejudice situations experienced.
Results indicated significant relationships between CSI coping factors and the IRRS racism
subscales. More specifically the problem-solving scale best predicted the race-related stress
associated with institutional forms of racial discrimination. Furthermore, avoidant forms of coping were
significantly negatively correlated with indices of self-esteem and life satisfaction while associations
between seeking social support and those same psychological variables were in the positive direction.
Lastly of interest is to note that avoidant coping strategies were also related to individual racism more
than to any other form especially for the female participants.
This finding is contrary to the reported evidence of earlier work in this area and may be
related to differences in the participant samples included in each investigation (e.g. college students
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v. working class adults). Distinctions in the participant groups may be associated with differences in
the life experiences (and experiences with racial discrimination) among varying levels of SES,
education, regional locales and life stages. The authors further offer another possible account for the
inconsistent findings among similarly-themed studies could be method variance. Most of the
investigations examining the methods African Americans use to cope with racism have often used
dissimilar coping measures and/or the unstructured, interview format.
Although once again this study drew solely from retrospective, self-report data, these
findings support the notion of particular coping styles being more so associated with both different
types of racially stressful situations and with specific indices of psychological functioning. Researchers
and clinicians are still left to wonder how coping strategies employed during experiences of racial
discrimination may be differentially related to psychological outcomes
immediately following racist events. Further, what is the interplay between affect and coping during
racism encounters? Lastly, specifically coping with collective forms of racism (e.g. racially-biased hate
crimes) remained to be explored. A final example of research in this field will be discussed prior to
both discussing the hardiness construct and to explaining the novel approach the current
investigation intends to utilize in further articulating the relationship between coping styles, individual
difference variables and psychological functioning in the face of racial prejudice and discrimination.
Brown (1998) attempted to better discern the relationship between coping reactions and
type of stressful event (involving racism or not) and to whether coping styles were similar when
comparing real life racism scenarios and experimental racism situations. In other words, this protocol
was investigating the ecological validity of laboratory-based racism stimuli in being able to elicit actual
“real world” responses from participants. The black college students who participated in this study
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were administered an inventory of stressful life events created by the author along with five of the
subscales derived from the COPE inventory which was briefly described in an earlier section.
Furthermore participants’ coping responses were assessed from interview data regarding how they
handled a real life racially stressful event and from experimentally manipulated racial discrimination
vignettes of similar content which were presented via tape recorder.
This study is considerably unique in that it incorporated both the idiographic interview design
of previous research emphasizing how different people have different experiences of racism arid a
standardized method of investigating similar experiences in the laboratory. It also compared coping
responses between a non-raciai event to racial discrimination stimuli. Most noteworthy, results
revealed a tenuous correlation between coping strategies employed in the experimental racism
condition and the real-life condition. Additionally, more types of coping methods were used in the
racism scenarios versus in their actual experiences of racial discrimination or prejudice. More
specifically, a combination of problem-focused and emotion-focused strategies were used in the
laboratory encounters. They included: active coping, emotional venting and turning to religion. Real
life racism stressors were responded to with a greater amount of seeking social support than the
laboratory stimuli. Lastly differences were also found in the types of strategies used between the
nonracism and racism scenarios by these participants. This latter finding is in support of other
empirical work which has demonstrated that instances of racial stress may warrant specific types of
coping strategies than other stressful events one might encounter.
Several important findings emerge from a review of the coping with racism literature. First,
coping style may vary depending on the context or mood state of the individual (Benjamin, 1984;
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Brown, 1998). Secondly, black individuals subjectively endorse some types of coping strategies as
being more beneficial than others in instances of racial prejudice and discrimination (States, 1994).
Thirdly, certain types of coping with racial discrimination are related to differences in particular
psychological outcome variables (Utsey et al., 2000).
Despite the contributions of past research, several aspects of this area of scientific and
clinical inquiry remain to be more fully examined. While these findings help researchers and clinicians
gain more insight into coping with racially stressful events, methods primarily involved retrospective
self-report questionnaires and/or an interview-based approach. Thus there was a need to explore
further the process of coping with racial discrimination in a more standardized way without solely
relying on the variable, past historical descriptions of participants.
Further, it was important to ascertain whether biracial individuals cope differentially with
specific racism scenarios. Additionally, differences in how black individuals deaf with and are
psychologically affected by varying kinds of racism including everyday racial stressors, racially-biased
hate crimes, intra-group discrimination were in need of assessment. Lastly, how individual difference
factors such as racial identity attitudes and hardiness (which is addressed next) are associated with
differences in coping intentions and indices of psychological outcome (e.g. self-esteem,
positive/negative) for black individuals under the stress of racial prejudice was warranted. In other
words it was of great importance to explore what variables or combinations of variables differentiate
how black (and biracial) persons deal with and are affected by racial prejudice. Put simply, what are
some reasons why different individuals might react in different ways to the same stressful (e.g. racist)
situation? This inquiry is significantly related to the following discussion of hardiness.
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The Construct of Hardiness and its Relationship to Stress Buffering and Trauma Recovery
Hardiness has been construed as a general tendency or a personal philosophy grounded in
existential psychology that describes the way particular individuals encounter, think about and handle
life’s challenges such that stressful circumstances are appraised as interesting opportunities for
personal growth rather than as an uncontrollable threat (Maddi & Kobasa, 1981). This construct
incorporates the three separate components of commitment, challenge and control. Commitment
involves being actively oriented to one’s environment and finding most things in life interesting and
meaningful. The challenge dimension is marked by beliefs that change and difficulty are part of the
natural way of things and as significant means by which one can learn and grow. Lastly, the control
dimension describes belief in the changeability of a stressful event or circumstance by active effort on
the part of the hardy individual. In essence, hardiness is viewed as a protective or buffering factor
against the negative impact of stress. Furthermore, Maddi (1997) describes the positive relationship
between hardiness and resilience: “Hardiness is a personal disposition considered an attitudinal
factor increasing the likelihood of resiliency reactions” (Maddi, 1997, p. 295).
When the construct of hardiness was initially introduced, it was described as being a
prominent mediating factor in the stress-illness relationship (see Maddi, 1997 for a review). Although
it’s specific mechanistic underpinnings in this association are equivocal, (see Funk, 1992 for a review;
Allred & Smith, 1989) there is limited evidence that hardiness works to influence both the appraisal of
and response to stressors (Wiebe, 1991). Thus, hardiness comprises both cognitive and behavioral
components. Moreover, it is posited that perhaps within the physical wellness literature, hardiness
serves as more of an indirect modulator by influencing actual health behaviors (Allred et al., 1989).
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However, more promising are the studies that show hardiness' negative correlation with
indices of psychopathology (Maddi & Khoshaba, 1994). Low hardiness was demonstrated to
characterize women who had suffered domestic violence and who also espoused feelings of
depression and helplessness (Finamore, 2000). Hardy attitudes have been positively associated with
self-esteem and self-efficacy beliefs (Bernard, Hutchinson, Lavin & Pennington, 1996). Furthermore,
level of hardiness beliefs have been found to be a significant moderator between depressive
symptoms and self-reported level of life stress (Pengilly & Dowd, 2 00 0).
Other examinations have demonstrated hardiness to be an important contributor to the
psychological adjustment and recovery of PTSD-suffering Vietnam veterans (King, King, Fairbank,
Keane & Adams, 1998) and in adult female survivors of childhood sexual abuse (Feinauer, Mitchell,
Harper & Dane, 1996). In this way, the hardiness measure may be thought of as a negative indicator
of psychological disturbance or a positive indicator of psychological health and well-being. Hardiness
may also be an important clinical tool in monitoring or predicting recovery and psychosocial
adjustment following significant trauma. This may be especially relevant in this and similar
investigations’ aims to better elucidate how individual difference factors such as hardiness are related
to the psychological effect of racism (including intense racially-based hate crimes).
Hardiness and Coping
Important to the current investigation is the theory and evidence that has shown how
hardiness is differentially related to specific coping styles. Transformational coping techniques were
purported to be highly associated with the hardy disposition. Transformational coping involves
"intensifying mental and action involvement with the stressful circumstance in order to resolve the
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problem through such means as positive reinterpretation, broadened perspective, deepened
understanding, decisive actions and seeking instrumental help” (Maddi & Hightower, 1999 p. 9 7 ).
Thus the hardy individual takes an active, problem-focused approach in finding solutions to
problems. Furthermore, the hardy person is posited to positively reframe an otherwise negative
situation in order to grow and find personal meaning. This type of coping is said to be at odds with
more regressive forms of coping such as avoidance, withdrawal, resigned acceptance, stoicism and
denial (Maddi et al., 1999). The dichotomy between transformational and regressive strategies maps
closely onto the approach-avoidance dimension of coping styles. Additionally, as previously
mentioned, it is postulated that the transformational style works at the level of cognitive appraisal
such that an event or circumstance is both perceived as less stressful (emotion-focused managing of
the stressor) and that one has the control to do something to change the stressor (problem-focused
management of the stressor) (Maddi, 1999). Thus transformational coping incorporates strategies
from both the avoidant-approach dimension as well as the emotion-focused-problem-focused
dimension of coping styles.
Two studies attempted to empirically validate the above premises of hardiness and coping
theory. One employed the COPE inventory as a measure of coping style and the other utilized the
Ways of Coping Questionnaire (WCQ; Folkman & Lazarus, 1988) to indicate typically used coping
strategies (Maddi et al., 1999; Maddi, 1999). In both cases the Personal Views Survey-ll (PVS-II;
Bartone, 1989; Maddi, 1987) was used as the measure of level of hardiness. Interestingly and in
support of the theoretical assumptions, hardiness was negatively correlated with regressive
(avoidance, behavioral disengagement, denial) coping strategies and transformational coping was
more likely to be related to coping among high hardy individuals than low hardy participants.
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As the majority of research on hardiness has primarily looked at the construct in European
American groups, it was of interest to the present study to learn if this construct is a meaningful one
in groups of black and biracial college students. In conjunction with this, the relationship between
hardiness and stage of racial identity attitudes had never been explored. It may be that aspects of
both of these individual difference variables are significantly associated with emotional status, coping
intentions and psychological outcome when confronting racially stressful events.
Finally, we turn to a brief summary of the advantages of the novel paradigm the current investigation
employed in studying the potential relationships between affect, coping and individual differences in
situations of racial prejudice and discrimination among black and biracial college students.
Investigating the Psychological Experiences and Coping Intentions During Racist Events: The
Articulated Thoughts and Simulated Situations (AT5S) Paradigm
While the previous research which has examined the relationship between coping styles and
racial discrimination has made very important contributions to the literature, it highlights several
methodological areas that may be expanded upon. To restate, past empirical and qualitative work has
utilized primarily a retrospective, self-report design thus relying heavily on the memory of the
participant groups. Memory for events can change over time and current clinical conditions such as
depression and anxiety can also influence how events are remembered. Moreover, although the
interview format allows great latitude in being able to provide participants with both closed ended and
open ended questions, there was a wide range of the types of racism events they recounted.
Thus there was interest in this study to somehow balance the ecological validity of the
experimental method with the desire for including well-controlled, standardized procedures. Basically
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a primary research goal was to compare groups with “real world” stimuli that are representative of
typical as well as less common racism experiences one might encounter while keeping consistent the
type of racism stimuli all participants would be presented with. In response to the limitations of self-
report, there have been significant advances in the assessment of cognition, emotion and behavior in
the laboratory. One such advancement is the “think aloud”, articulated thoughts in simulated
situations (ATSS) paradigm.
This think aloud approach was initially introduced by Davison and colleagues (Davison,
Robins, & Johnson, 1983) and has been further refined and developed scientifically over the past two
decades (see Davison, Vogel & Coffman, 1997 for a comprehensive review). The ATSS methodology
basically involves the presentation of tape-recorded scenarios which may vary in length and content.
Participants are asked to imagine the scenario as it unfolds as if they were actually experiencing it.
Each scenario or vignette is subdivided into separate segments. At the end of each segment,
participants say what they’re thinking and feeling at that particular point of the scenario in reaction to
the material in the vignette. Due to the novelty of this protocol, a practice scenario usually precedes
the administration of the experimental vignettes.
The ATSS paradigm is a distinctive and advantageous addition to the cognitive assessment
literature for several reasons. First it provides an on-line means of examining how individuals think
and feel in certain situations and thus is not based on the retrospective accounts of the participants.
Secondly, ATSS is a highly flexible approach in that there are numerous types of scenarios that might
be devised limited only by the creativity of the investigator. Thirdly, the same scenarios can be
administered to all participants, thus maintaining the integrity of experimental control. Fourthly, the
scenarios may be both complex and at the same time hypothetical in nature, permitting the
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assessment of thoughts and feelings for situations that may be novel to the participants. Lastly, the
unstructured response format allows for the standardized gathering of qualitatively rich data.
Furthermore, the ATSS paradigm has been shown to be an effective method of assessing cognition
and emotion in both clinical (i.e. depression) and non-dinical samples (see Davison et al., 1997 for a
review).
Using this think aloud approach in the exploration of affective experiences, coping intentions
and the relationship of individual difference factors on psychological outcome in black and biracial
college students provided an experimental investigation complementary to research already done on
the subject.
Experimental Rationale Revisited
To briefly summarize the main points from the previous review of the relevant literatures:
1. Racism is a psychologically-malignant reality for many African Americans that may take several
forms.
2. Racially-based hate crimes may elicit different levels and types of emotional and coping
responses than everyday forms of racial discrimination.
3. Coping with intra-group instances of discrimination (e.g. relational aggression by same-ethnicity
peers) has not been explored with controlled experimental methods.
4. Very little empirical work has compared the psychological functioning and coping strategies
utilized by African American and biracial groups when encountering racially stressful situations.
5. Women of African American heritage are an understudied population with regards to their
experience of racial prejudice and discrimination.
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6. Certain radal identity attitudes and hardiness beliefs have been shown to be useful indicators of
positive psychological health in the face of stress.
7. Individual difference variables such as racial identity attitudes and hardiness may be significantly
associated with the emotional experience and coping intentions during as well as with the
psychological impact following specific racist events.
8. The ATSS paradigm has methodological features that allow one to build upon data obtained from
conventional self-report techniques and interview methods.
Experimental Hypotheses
Based on the present investigation's primary objectives to both support and expand upon prior
empirical work, several hypotheses were examined.
t . In general, changes in psychological functioning following simulated racism encounters were
anticipated. More specifically, significant decrements in positive affect and increments in negative
affect post-ATSS manipulation were predicted.
2. African American and biracial participants would not differ significantly on pre-ATSS measures of
psychological functioning (hardiness, positive and negative affect, self-esteem).
3. The two participant groups were not expected to differ on the self-reported coping behaviors
employed when faced with past instances of racial discrimination.
4. Significant distinctions on certain stages of racial identity attitudes were predicted between the
African American and biracial study participants. Specifically, immersion and internalization
attitudes were anticipated to be more strongly endorsed by the African American group.
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5. During the ATSS racism scenarios, it was hypothesized that the African American group would
articulate greater negative affect during an intra-group encounter than would the biracial
participants.
6. The African American participants were expected to verbalize emotion-focused coping intentions
more frequently than the other participant group during the ATSS portion of the study. Group
differences in articulating cognitions expressing emotion-based coping strategies were
anticipated to be especially apparent in the intra-group and hate crime scenarios.
7. Both an individual, everyday racism-type ATSS scenario as well as a within-ethnic/racial group
discriminatory encounter were expected to elicit greater behavioral disengagement coping
intentions and positive emotional expressions than would a racist hate crime.
8. It was anticipated that a racially-motivated hate crime simulation would evoke greater anger, fear,
avoidant cognitions, emotion-focused and transformational coping intentions than would other
types of racial discrimination situations.
9. Experiencing discrimination at the hands of perpetrators who are of a similar ethnic minority
background as the participants was predicted to elicit greater feelings of sadness than would the
other types of discrimination encounters.
10. Articulated affect expressions would be differentially related to articulated coping intentions
during the ATSS racism scenarios. In general, it was anticipated that problem-focused coping
would be negatively associated with negative affect expressions and emotion-focused coping
would be positively related to verbalizations of negative emotions. It was also predicted that the
greater the positive affect expressed in the simulated racial discrimination events, the greater the
likelihood of articulating transformational coping cognitions.
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34
11. Racial identity attitudes and hardiness beliefs would be differentially associated with each other. It
was anticipated that earlier stage attitudes (e.g. pre-encounter) would be negatively associated
with hardiness and its components while later stage attitudes (e.g. internalization) were expected
to be positively associated with hardiness.
12. Racial identity attitudes and hardiness would be differentially associated with pre-ATSS measures
of psychological functioning. Hardiness and its components in addition to Internalization attitudes
were anticipated to be positively related to pre-indices of positive affect and self esteem and to
be negatively associated with a pre-measure of negative affect. Early stage attitudes (pre
encounter) were expected to be correlated to the same variables in a reverse fashion.
13. Racial identity attitudes and hardiness were predicted to be differentially associated with
articulated affect expressions and coping intentions during the ATSS racial discrimination
scenarios. Pre-encounter attitudes were expected to be positively related to verbalizations of
sadness, avoidance and behavioral disengagement. Immersion attitudes were hypothesized to be
positively correlated with emotion-focused coping intentions and anger expressions.
Internalization attitudes and hardiness were anticipated to be positively associated with problem-
focused and transformational coping intentions and with expressions of positive emotions during
the ATSS scenarios. Hardiness and it’s components were further anticipated to be negatively
correlated with articulations expressing avoidance or behavioral disengagement.
14. Racial identity attitudes and hardiness would be differentially related to post-ATSS measures of
psychological functioning. The predicted correlations as described for the pre-ATSS indices of
positive and negative affect and self-esteem were expected to be maintained. Further, hardiness
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35
was anticipated to be positively related to participants’ post-ATSS reflections on preparedness
and interest. Pre-encounter attitudes were anticipated to covary with thoughts of preparedness
and interest in a negative fashion.
15. Articulated affect expressions and coping intentions were also anticipated to be differentially
related to post-ATSS measures of psychological functioning. More specifically, expressions of
positive affect, problem-focused and transformational coping verbalized during ATSS were
anticipated to be positively related to post-ATSS self-reported positive affect and self-esteem and
negatively associated with post-ATSS endorsements of negative affect. Articulations of negative
emotional states and emotion-focused, avoidant and disengagement coping intentions were
predicted to be positively related to post-ATSS self-reported negative affect and negatively
related to post-ATSS positive affect and self-esteem.
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Method
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Participants
Sixty-four female students from the University of Southern California undergraduate
community participated in this study. Forty-one participants were African American (mean age = 19.4,
s.d. = 1.02) and twenty-three were biracial (mean age = 18.9, s.d. = 1.04) of African American
heritage. Students were classified as biracial if only one of their parents was African American. The
groups did not differ significantly on age, F (1 ,6 2 ) = 2.87, p = . 10. Nor were there significant
differences found between groups for year in school, X2 = 2.33, p = .51 or current socioeconomic
status (SES), X2 = 3.07, p = .55. More specifically, the majority of participants were sophomores
(35.9% ) and the most populous SES group represented in this study was the middle class (46.9% ).
Individuals were remunerated for their participation by either receiving psychology course extra credit
or $10.
Measures
Several self-report questionnaires were completed by participants during this study in
order to examine potential differences in scale scores representing general hardy beliefs, specific
attitudes about racial identity and particular coping strategies. Furthermore, current aspects of
psychological functioning of the participant groups were measured by inventories indexing level of
positive and negative affect along with degree of self-esteem. Elucidating changes in the psychological
functioning of the study participants were of great interest to the present investigation. Thus, the
measures of affect and self-esteem were administered both immediately prior to and immediately
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subsequent to experiencing the simulated racism scenarios. Moreover, in order to decrease the
likelihood of priming with regard to coping, the COPE Inventory was presented to the study
participants following the ATSS racial discrimination vignettes.
Demographic Questionnaire. This questionnaire documented personal information about
each participant. Among the variables of interest were age, ethnicity, ethnicity of parents, marital
status of parents, year in school, current level of SES and the location of the participants’ permanent
residences. Other data inventoried on this measure included the ethnic composition of their
neighborhoods and schools while growing up along with the ethnic makeup of their current social
group and ethnic preferences in dating partners.
Racial Identity Attitudes Scale-Black Version (RIAS-B; Parham & Helms, 1985). This is a 50-
item scale that indexed levels of attitudes about racial identity in accordance with Cross’ (19 71 ) four
main stages of African American racial identity development. It includes subscales measuring pre
encounter, encounter, immersion and internalization racial identity attitudes. Internal consistency
alpha coefficients for each of the subscales have been reported as: .76 for pre-encounter, .51 for
encounter, .69 for immersion and .80 for internalization. Each item could be endorsed on a 5-point
Likert scale ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree).
Personal Views Survey-Version Three Revised (PVS-IIIR; Hardiness Institute, 2 0 0 1 ). This 18-
item instrument was used to measure dispositional hardiness beliefs. A total Hardy Attitude score
(alpha coefficients range from .7 7 -8 1 ) may be obtained as well as scores on the three subscales of
Commitment (alphas range from .6 3-.6 8), Challenge (alphas range from .67-.70) and Control (alphas
range from .4 7 -.5 7 ). Respondents were asked to rate items on a scale ranging from 0 (not at all
true) to 3 (completely true).
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Positive and Negative Affect Schedule (PANAS; Watson, Clark & Tellegen, 1988). This 20-item
scale measures the degree of positive and negative affect experienced within an experimentally-
defined time period. For this study, participants were asked to rate how strongly they currently felt
each affective term both before and after the ATSS portion of the experimental protocol. Each of the
10 positive and 10 negative affective words were rated on a 5-point Likert scale ranging from 1 (very
slightly or not at all) to 5 (extremely). The internal consistencies for the Positive Affect scale and the
Negative Affect scale have been reported as .89 and .85 respectively with respect to ratings for level
of affect experienced at the current moment. Test-retest stability coefficients have been documented
as .54 for the Positive Affect scale and .4 5 for the Negative Affect scale for current moment affective
ratings.
Rosenberg Self-esteem Scale (RSE; Rosenberg, 1965). This is a 10-item Guttman scale used
to measure current level of self-esteem. Scores can range from - 6 (high) to 6 (low). Items are
endorsed on a 4-point scale ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 4 (strongly agree). For purposes
of this study, item scores on this measure were reverse-keyed such that low scores were negative and
high scores were positive. Internal consistency and test-retest reliabilities coefficients have been
reported as .72 and .92 respectively.
COPE Inventory (COPE; Carver, Scheier & Weintraub, 1989). This is a 53-item scale that
measures coping strategies across fourteen subscales for either a specific stressful event or for how
one typically copes with stress. It has adequate internal consistency (alphas range from .45-.92) and
test-retest reliabilities (coefficients range from .48-.86). Items were rated on a four-point Likert scale
ranging from 1 (I didn’t do this at all.) to 4 (I did this a lot.). The fourteen subscales may
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be conceptually and empirically grouped into problem-focused, emotion-focused, disengagement and
cognitive appraisal coping dimensions. For this study, participants were asked to respond to the items
with respect to how they had coped with a specific instance of racial discrimination.
Post-study Questionnaire (PSQ). This experimenter-designed questionnaire contained three
items that were presented to participants after listening and responding to the ATSS racism scenarios.
The Post-study Thoughts question was used to obtain a rough indication of the quality of ruminations
or thoughts experienced following the simulated racial discrimination encounters. Responses ranged
from 1 (very positive) to 5 (very negative). An endorsement of 3 reflected a neutral characterization
of one’s thoughts subsequent to the ATSS vignettes. The Post-study Preparedness item asked
participants to rate how prepared they felt in handling the simulated racial discrimination events.
Responses ranged from 1 (not at all prepared) to 5 (very prepared). The Post-study Interest question
had respondents endorse how interesting they found the ATSS racism vignettes. Ratings could range
from 1 (not interesting at all) to 5 (very interesting).
ATSS Racial Discrimination Vignettes
The ATSS paradigm involved having participants listen to experimenter-designed
racism scenarios that were presented via a tape player and an audiotape. The vignettes were
subdivided into seven segments with 30-second pauses between each segment. During the pauses,
participants were instructed to “think out loud”, verbally expressing their thoughts and feelings in
response to the portion of the story they’d just heard. The participants’ articulated thoughts were
collected via a tape recorder for later transcription and content analysis.
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Three different types of racial discrimination vignettes were included in this study. This part of the
experimental protocol was designed to gain more insight regarding how varying the level of intensity
of racist encounter along with diversifying the ethnic background of the perpetrator may highlight
important differences in the psychological experiences and the coping intentions employed by the
study participants. One vignette was an example of individual racism. Another was an instance of
collective racism and even more specifically, a hate crime. The final scenario type involved
discrimination performed by individuals who were of a similar ethnic minority background as the study
participants. This last vignette was a novel examination of within-group, intra-ethnic prejudicial beliefs
and discriminatory practices. Each participant listened and responded to all three ATSS scenarios
which were presented in a counterbalanced order. Copies of the full scripts for each vignette are
included in the Appendix.
The Mall Encounter (Individual Racism). In this scenario the participant encountered
repeated instances of negligent service while shopping for an outfit in a mall located in a
predominantly European American-populated area of the city. Perpetrators in this vignette included a
parking lot valet, an information desk attendant and multiple store salespersons.
The Neo-Nazi Encounter (Collective Racism). During this vignette the participant was faced
with responding to several aspects of a hate crime committed by a group of European American,
adolescent males wearing clothing with Nazi swastikas sewn on the sleeves. The participant’s car was
vandalized with racial slurs, and the group of males verbally harassed the participant as well as threw
rocks at her car as she drove away.
The Sorority Encounter flntra-ethnic Discrimination). This discrimination scenario involved the
participant being treated rudely by two African American sorority sisters while the participant was
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waiting in line to find out more information about the sorority. Although the participant was informed
early on in the scenario with regards to the ethnic background of the sorority members, it is unclear
until later on in the vignette the particular prejudicial reasons as to why the sorority sisters are acting
in such a manner. Thus, this vignette combines two unique aspects in this investigation. Firstly, unlike
in the other two ATSS vignettes, the perpetrators share a similar ethnic minority background as the
study participants. Secondly, this discriminatory encounter contains a greater degree of ambiguity as
to why the perpetrators are behaving negatively towards the participant than in the other two racism
scenarios. It was ultimately revealed that the two perpetrators are gossiping about the participant and
maltreating her due to their beliefs that the participant isn’t “black enough” to be a member of their
organization.
Procedure
All participants were guided through the experimental protocol by either the author or
a member of a team of highly trained undergraduate research assistants. Upon entering the
laboratory, participants were taken to the experiment room to complete a consent form which included
an overview of the study’s procedure. At that time any procedural questions or concerns were
addressed. After obtaining informed consent, each individual was given a copy of the Demographic
Questionnaire, RIAS-B, PVS-IIIR, PANAS and RSE scale to fill out. Following the completion of these
surveys, the experimenter introduced the ATSS procedure by playing a detailed instructional tape.
The participant practiced the A TS S response format using a pre-recorded scenario and was
supervised by the experimenter to ensure comprehension of the ATSS procedure. The practice
vignette's theme was not related to racial discrimination. Rather, it involved the participant
overhearing two acquaintances criticize her opinions. The participant’s responses during this practice
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vignette were not recorded. After the rehearsal of the format, the experimenter began to play the pre
recorded experimental racial discrimination vignettes and then left the room. This was done to provide
the participant with maximal privacy in hopes of capturing the most uncensored responses to the
vignettes. Following the ATSS portion of the study the experimenter returned to the room to give the
participants copies of the PANAS, RSE, PSQ and COPE to complete. Prior to exiting the experiment
room, the experimenter folly debriefed each participant, inquiring about their reactions to the study
and reassuring them that the simulated situations were not real. At this time, they were also given a
referral to the U S C Counseling Center and Dr. Gerald Davison’s email address in case any questions or
concerns arose once they left the laboratory, lust before leaving, each individual was thanked for her
participation and then received either psychology course credit or $10.
Content Analysis of ATSS Racial Discrimination Vignettes
The qualitative responses articulated during the simulated racism scenarios were first
transcribed directly from the audiotapes by either the author or an undergraduate research assistant.
The ATSS data were then content analyzed and coded for expressions of affect experienced and
intentions to cope during the racial discrimination vignettes. Upon achieving good inter-rater reliability
(r > .80) for each ATSS dependent variable, the coding was completed by two highly trained
undergraduate research assistants. Please refer to the Results section for a more detailed description
of the specific inter-rater reliabilities for each of the ATSS dependent variables. All of the ATSS
dependent variables were coded as total frequency counts across the 7-segments of each racism
scenario.
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Articulated Affect Expressions. It was of interest to the current investigation to examine the
different types of emotional experiences the participants verbalized in response to each of the racial
discrimination encounters. It was anticipated that the ATSS racism scenarios would elicit a greater
amount of negative affective utterances than positive verbalizations. Thus, a closer scrutiny of
separate, yet related negative emotional expressions was undertaken. In contrast, positive affective
expressions were combined into one dependent variable. Each Articulated Affect Expression was
coded for in each of the three ATSS racial discrimination situations (e.g. Mall, Neo-Nazi, Sorority).
Anger Expressions. These were responses in which the participant expressed
general feelings of anger during the discrimination vignettes. Typical anger terms coded for this
dependent variable included “angry”, “frustrated", “annoyed”, “mad”, “upset” and “irritated".
Sadness Expressions. This dependent variable coded for the frequency of
verbalizations expressing feelings of sadness in the ATSS racism encounters. Among the sadness
terms coded were “sad”, “depressed", “hurt" and “disappointed".
Fear Expressions. Articulated expressions for this variable were a combination of
fear and anxiety utterances. Common terms coded for this dependent variable included “afraid”,
“scared”, “nervous", “anxious" and “uncomfortable”.
Positive Affect Expressions. Positive emotional verbalizations were coded for in this
ATSS dependent variable. Examples of positive affect expressions included “happy", “excited”,
“eager”, “curious" and “interesting".
Articulated Coping Intentions and Cognitions. In addition to exploring the participants’
affective experiences during the simulated racism vignettes, another primary aim was to describe the
participants’ intentions and cognitions regarding how they would cope during such situations. The
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following ATSS dependent variables were conceptualized within as well as expanded upon the coping
framework put forth by the authors of the COPE Inventory. Selected COPE subscales served as the
primary guide for quantifying the participants’ articulated coping intentions. It is important to note that
in several instances different aspects of the same verbalization could be coded as reflecting multiple
coping intention variables. Further, each Articulated Coping Intention dependent variable was coded
for in each ATSS racial discrimination scenario (e.g. Mall, Neo-Nazi, Sorority).
Problem-focused Intentions. This variable assessed participants' intentions to
manage or manipulate the stressors in the discrimination encounters. Active (approaching or
confronting to achieve the desired goal) coping, restraint (thinking before acting) coping and seeking
social support for instrumental (informational) reasons were combined to form this ATSS dependent
variable. Some examples of problem-focused verbalizations were: “I would tell them to park my car for
me since I was first in line.”, “I would calf the police for help.”, “I would find the store manager and
ask for their help.", ‘Td really want to say something back to those Nazi creeps but I won’t because it
could be dangerous”.
Emotion-focused Intentions. Cases where the participant articulated intentions to
verbally- or physically aggress against perpetrators in the scenarios were quantified as emotion-
focused coping cognitions. Additionally, instances of asking for God’s help or seeking out social
support for emotional reasons (e.g. to complain or vent to) were further combined in this ATSS
dependent variable. It was of interest to more generally quantify the frequency of coping intentions
conceptually rooted in managing (both adaptively as well as those methods that are considered to be
less helpful) the emotions elicited by the racism stressors. Some examples of such intentions were: ”1
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would go over to the valet and tell him off.”, “I would find the supervisor and complain about the
salesperson.", “I would talk to my mom after such a horrible day.”, “I would probably hit them with the
brochure after I’d gotten one.”, “I’d get in my car and try to run those racists down.”.
Behavioral Disengagement Intentions. This ATSS dependent coping variable
coded instances in which participants articulated intentions to give up attaining the desired goals (e.g.
material objects, information, aid) in the racial discrimination scenarios. Some illustrations of this type
of coping intention included: "I'd just leave the store and forget about getting the dress here.”, “I
would leave the line and not sign up for the sorority.”, “You can’t even rely on the police so I wouldn’t
even call them back even though we got disconnected.”, “To heck with the valet, I'd go and park the
car myself”.
Avoidant Cognitions. This type of coping variable coded cases in which the
participant expressed thoughts of avoiding or ignoring the perpetrators in the ATSS racism vignettes.
Some examples of this method of coping were: “I’d avoid looking at those Nazis as it might set them
off.”, “I’d just ignore those sorority sisters’ stares.”
Transformational Cognitions. Articulated thoughts that illustrated a positive reframe
or reinterpretation of the negative racial discrimination situations were coded for in this ATSS coping
variable. More specifically, verbalized instances of “looking on the bright side" of things or discovering
or learning something positive from the racial prejudice experiences were quantified as
transformational cognitions. Some examples included: “Although it was a terrible night, things could
have been a lot worse.”, “Even though those two sorority sisters have a chip on
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their shoulder at least the president seems nice.”, “Although the people in that mall make me angry, I
know that not all white people are like that.", “I’m upset about the damage to my car but at least we
didn’t get physically hurt by those guys.”.
Data Reduction and Statistical Analysis
Two primary sets of analyses were conducted in this study. The first set involved examining
between-subject differences on pre- and post-ATSS self-report measures as well as between- and
within-subject effects on the ATSS coded variables based on racial identity group (African American v.
biradal). The second set of analyses documented the relationships between and among the pre- and
post-ATSS self-report measure dependent variables and the ATSS racial discrimination vignettes’
affect and coping dependent variables. All dependent variables, both self-report and ATSS were
continuous. All quantitative analyses were performed utilizing the SPSS statistical package version
10.0. The Bonferroni confidence interval adjustment was used for interpreting the pairwise
comparisons of significant (at the .05 level) interactions and main effects of all mulitivariate ANOVAs.
Regarding potential differences based on racial identity group, a two-way multivariate ANOVA
Group (2) x Self-report (1 5 ) was conducted. The self-report dependent variables included in this
MANOVA were: RIAS-B (4 ), PVS-IIIR (4 ), COPE (4 ), PSQ (3). RIAS-B variables were the mean scores
on the Pre-encounter, Encounter, Immersion and Internalization subscales of the attitudes about
racial identity measure. Average scale scores for overall Hardy Attitudes, Commitment Attitudes,
Control Attitudes and Challenge Attitudes represented the PVS-IIIR variables. The relevant COPE
subscales' item responses were collapsed into Problem-focused, Emotion-focused and
Disengagement composites. Further the Positive Reinterpretation and Growth subscale from this
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inventory was maintained in order to examine endorsement of Transformational coping, internal
consistency reliability coefficients for each of these composites based on this sample ranged from
good to superior and were documented as follows: Problem-focused (r = .90), Emotion-focused (r =
.87), Disengagement (r = .73) and Transformational (r = .64). Mean scores on the three
composites and the one subscale reflected the COPE variables in this multivariate analysis. Lastly, the
mean scores on each of the three items of the PSQ were included in this MANOVA.
The Positive and Negative Affect scales from the PANAS and the Rosenberg Self-esteem
scale were all administered to participants both prior to as well as immediately following the ATSS
vignettes. Thus, three separate two-way repeated measures MANOVAs were used to examine
significant main effects and interactions of Group (2) x Time (2) for mean scores on the Positive
Affect, Negative Affect and Self-esteem scales before and after the ATSS scenarios.
A three-way Group (2) x Scenario (3) x Articulated Affect (4 ) multivariate repeated measures
ANOVA was performed to explore the significant between- and within-racial identity group main effects
and interactions for mean frequencies on the A T S S Articulated Affect Expressions variables. The three
Scenario variables refer to the Mall, the Neo-Nazi and the Sorority racial discrimination vignettes. The
four types of Articulated Affect included the Anger, Sadness, Fear and Positive Affect Expressions
ATSS dependent variables.
A three-way Group (2) x Scenario (3) x Articulated Coping (5) multivariate repeated
measures ANOVA was conducted to investigate the significant between- and within-racial identity
group main effects and interactions for mean frequencies on the ATSS Articulated Coping Intentions
variables. The three levels of Scenario were previously defined above. The five levels of Articulated
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Coping included the Problem-focused, Emotion-focused, Avoidant, Behavioral Disengagement and
Transformational Coping Intentions ATSS dependent variables.
finally, Pearson product moment bivariate correlations were performed to investigate the
general relationships between and among the self-report and the ATSS dependent variables. For
these analyses, the ATSS coded data based on the three particular racial discrimination scenarios was
collapsed into four affect and six coping indexes. The four affect indexes included the Anger Index, the
Sadness Index, the Fear Index and the Positive Affect Index. The six coping indexes were the
Problem-focused Index, the Emotion-focused Index, the Avoidant Index, the Behavioral
Disengagement Index, the Total Disengagement Index and the Transformational Index.
The Anger Index for example, consisted of the Mall Anger, the Neo-Nazi Anger and the
Sorority Anger variable response frequencies. The Problem-focused Index was a compilation of the
Mall Problem-focused, the Neo-Nazi Problem-focused and the Sorority Problem-focused variable
response frequencies. Further, it should be clarified that the Behavioral Disengagement Index and the
Avoidant Index were also both collapsed to form the Total Disengagement Index. This was done in
order to assess significant relationships between the self-reported disengagement coping behaviors
indexed by the relevant COPE scales and the similarly-themed coping responses articulated in the
racism vignettes. Thus this index is a combination of the Mall Behavioral Disengagement, the Neo-
Nazi Behavioral Disengagement, the Sorority Behavioral Disengagement, the Mall Avoidant, the Neo-
Nazi Avoidant and the Sorority Avoidant variable total response frequencies.
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Results
The results for this investigation are organized according to the original experimental
hypotheses. The first group of statistical findings includes analyses to ascertain potential differences
between racial identity group status and the self-report and ATSS dependent variables. The second
set of results explores the inter-correlations among the self-report dependent variables and the ATSS
dependent variables measured in this study. The specific focus for this latter portion of analyses was
to more closely examine the relationships of the individual difference factors, racial identity attitudes
and hardiness, with the psychological experiences of participants before, during as well as in the
immediate aftermath of encountering the ATSS racism vignettes. Further, it was of great interest to
gain a deeper understanding of how specific beliefs about African American identity and how more
general hardy attitudes were associated with particular coping intentions expressed while experiencing
such imagined discrimination situations.
Inter-rater Reliabilities for the ATSS Dependent Variables
Two highly trained undergraduate research assistants served as the content analyzers for
the articulated thoughts and feelings collected from the ATSS racism scenario data. In order to assess
the inter-rater reliabilities for the specific ATSS Articulated Affect and Articulated Coping Intentions
dependent variables, the intra-class correlation coefficients for each variable were calculated. The
inter-rater reliability coefficient analyses were performed on approximately 10% of the total sample’s
recorded responses. As illustrated in Table 1, the coders achieved strong inter-rater consistencies for
all ATSS dependent variables of interest. Intra-class correlation coefficients
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ranged from .84 to a perfect 1.0. All coefficients were significant at the p < .001 level. Following the
attainment of good inter-rater consistencies, the coders then each content analyzed half of the
remaining ATSS audio-tapes.
Table 1 : Inter-rater Reliability Coefficients for ATSS Dependent Variables
A T S S Dependent Variable Intra-class Correlation Coefficient*
Anger Expressions .97
Sadness Expressions .87
Fear Expressions 1.0
Positive Affect Expressions .94
Problem-focused Intentions .94
Emotion-focused Intentions .84
Avoidant Cognitions .94
Behavioral Disengagement intentions .85
Transformational C ognitions .90
Note*. A ll correlations significant at the p < .001 level.
Racial Identity Group and Categorical Demographic Variables
There were no significant differences found between the African American and biracial
participants with respect to the marital status of their parents, X2 = 3.87, p = .28. The majority of the
participants’ parents were currently married (5 4 .7 % ). Chi-square analyses also indicated that
members of both racial identity groups were not dissimilar regarding the area of the country they
reported as being their present permanent residence, X2 = 1.25, p = .53.
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Most students currently resided in the Los Angeles area (43.8 % ) or outside Los Angeles but within
California (39.1 % ) than who lived outside the state of California (17.2% ).
When asked about the ethnic composition of the schools they attended while growing up,
both participant groups made similar endorsements, X2 = 2.83, p = .24. In general, the study
participants went to predominantly European American-populated (46.9% ) and ethnically-mixed
(46.9% ) schools rather than primarily African American-populated (6.3% ) schools. The groups
marginally differed in the reported ethnic composition of the neighborhoods they were raised in, X2 =
5.72, p = .06. What this finding indicated was that the African American participants were more likely
to have grown up in predominantly African American-populated (84.6% ) neighborhoods than were
members of the biracial group (1 5 .4 % ). Furthermore, a greater percentage of the young adult
women of mixed ethnic heritage (47.8% ) were found to have resided in neighborhood communities
that were primarily populated by families of European American descent in comparison to the African
American study participants (2 2 .0 % ).
The African American and biracial participant groups were found to significantly diverge with
respect to both the racial makeup of their current social network of friends, X2 = 9.12, p = .01 as
well as their current racial/ethnic preferences in dating partners, X2 = 20.4, p < .001. Overall, the
majority of participants reported principally socializing with an ethnically-mixed group of friends
(59.4% ). However, the African American participants endorsed primarily having more African
American friends (43.9% ) than did the biracial participants (13.0% ). Additionally, the biracial women
in this study described the ethnic composition of their present groups of friends as being
predominantly comprising individuals of European American heritage (17.4% ) to a greater degree
when compared to the African American participant group (2.4% ).
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In general, across participant groups, a preference for dating African American individuals
(65.6% ) was markedly greater than were preferences for dating persons who are European American
(7.8% ), either African American or European American (17.2% ), or non-African American and non-
European American (9.4% ). Further, the biracial participants reported more frequently preferring to
date European American individuals (21.7% ) than did their African American counterparts (0% ). The
African American participant group held a greater preference for dating those of a similar ethnic
minority background (82.9% ) than did the biracial group (34.8% ). Lastly, the biracial participants
(21.7% ) were more likely to have preferences for dating persons who were neither African American
nor European American to a greater extent than did the African American participant group (2.4% ).
Racial Identity Group and Pre- and Post-AT5S Measures of Psychological Functioning
The following section describes results from analyses that were performed to ascertain any
differences between the African American and biracial participant groups on aspects of psychological
functioning experienced both before as well as immediately following the simulated racism encounters.
Tables 2 and 3 provide a summary of the descriptive statistics for the self-report variables included in
this study.
Hardiness. As originally anticipated, the African American and biracial women in this
investigation did not differ significantly on their total level of Hardy Attitudes, Group x Hardy Attitudes,
F (1 ,6 2 ) = .01, p = .93. Furthermore, there were no significant interactions between racial identity
group and any of the three specific Hardy Attitude components of Commitment, Challenge and Control.
Thus, the African American and biracial groups evidenced similar endorsements of beliefs about how
much they are involved in and committed to their environment, Group x Commitment Attitudes, F (1,
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53
62) = .21, p = .65. Moreover the two groups shared similar beliefs about how they typically appraise
stressors in the environment as challenging opportunities for growth and learning, Group x Challenge
Attitudes, F ( 1 ,6 2 ) = .1.83, p = .18.
Lastly, these null findings suggest that the African American and biracial participants were further
indistinguishable with regard to how much control they believe they hold over successfully
manipulating aspects of their environment, Group x Control Attitudes, F (1 ,6 2 ) = .47, p = .49.
Positive Affect. In contrast to prior expectations, over the course of the experimental
protocol, positive affect for both participant groups as measured by the PANAS Positive Affect scale
remained high and unchanged, Positive Affect x Time, F (1,6 2) = .61, p = .44. There was no
significant difference between participant groups on level of positive affect endorsed either before or
after the ATSS racial discrimination vignettes, Group x Positive Affect Time, F (1 ,6 2 ) = .32, p = .57.
Table 2: Descriptive Statistics for Hardiness and Racial Identity Attitude D e p e n d e n t
Variables
Variable (N = 64)
M S E
M in . Max
Hardy Attitudes 38.8 4.96 27.0 47.0
C om m itm ent Attitudes 12.64 2.68 7.0 18.0
Challenge Attitudes 13.14 2.28 8.0 18.0
Control Attitudes 13.02 2.02 8.0 16.0
Preencounter Attitudes
(unweighted)
23.92 5.97 14.0 40.0
Encounter Attitudes
(unweighted)
11 .4 1 2.9 1 4.0 19.0
Immersion Attitudes
(unweighted)
16.34 4.36 10.0 34.0
Internalization Attitudes
(unweighted)
48.16 5.45 30.0 59.0
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Table 3: Descriptive Statistics for PANAS. RSE. COPE and Post-studv Dependent Variables
Variable (N = 64) M SO Min. Max. Variable (N = 64) M SD Min. Max.
Pre-ATSS
Positive Affect
Post-ATSS
Positive Affect
Pre-ATSS
Negative Affect
Post-ATSS
Negative Affect
Pre-ATSS
Self-esteem
Post-ATSS
Self-esteem
29.42 8.44 12.0 50.0
28.66 9.59 10.0 50.0
12.86 5.30 10.0 50.0
16.25 6.72 10.0 50.0
3.91 2.68 -4.0 6.0
4.28 2.36 -4.0 6.0
Problem-focused
Composite (unweighted)
Emotion-focused
Composite (unweighted)
Disengagement
Composite (unweighted)
Transformational
Coping (unweighted)
Post-study Thoughts
Post-study
Preparedness
Post-study Interest
43.03 13.17 20.0 71.0
30.69 9.09 12.0 48.0
20.13 5.39 13.0 34.0
10.27 2.85 4.0 16.0
2.98 1.15 1.0 5.0
3.59 1.08 1.0 5.0
3.91 1.03 1.0 5.0
£
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Negative Affect. In accordance with predictions, across participant groups, there was a main
effect of Time with regard to the level of negative affect experienced, Negative Affect x Time, F (1,6 2)
= 28.3, p < .001. This significant result suggests that participants generally reported feeling higher
negative emotions following the AT5S manipulation than before. There was no interaction however,
found between the participant groups for the amount of negative affect experienced either just before
or immediately following the AT5S racism scenarios, Group x Negative Affect Time, F (1 ,6 2 ) = .75, p
= .39.
Self-esteem. In general, the results revealed an interesting trend in the overall effect of Time
regarding the level of self-esteem reported by the participant groups, Self-esteem x Time, F (1 ,6 2 ) =
3.48, p = .07. What this finding suggests is that self-esteem following the ATSS racial discrimination
vignettes across participants was marginally higher than their self-reported feelings of self-worth
measured before the ATSS protocol. Further, as anticipated, the African American and biracial study
participants did not differ significantly on their levels of self-esteem endorsed either before or after
the simulated racism scenarios, Group x Self-esteem Time, F (1 ,6 2 ) = .01, p = .91.
Thoughts. Following the simulated experiences of racial discrimination there was a fascinating
significant difference found between the racial identity groups for the valence or affective quality of
their thoughts, Group x Post-study Thoughts, F (1 ,6 2 ) = 5 .% , p = .02. This result evidenced the
African American participants endorsing a more positive characterization to their thoughts subsequent
to the ATSS discriminatory manipulation than did the biracial participant group. This was an attempt to
learn about the positive, negative or neutral quality to the post-study ruminations of the participants.
Preparedness. When reflecting on one of the post-ATSS self-report questions, about how
prepared they felt in dealing with the interpersonal racial stressors they encountered during the ATSS
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56
vignettes, both the African American and biracial participants did not differ significantly in their
endorsements, Group x Post-study Preparedness, F (1,62) = .65, p = .42. Both participant groups
reported feeling relatively well prepared to handle the discrimination they faced in the audio-taped
simulated situations.
Interest. When inquired as to how interesting they found the ATSS racism scenarios, both
Racial Identity Groups did not differ significantly in their reports, Group x Post-study Interest, F (1,6 2)
= .29, p = .59. Both the African American and biracial participants endorsed high feelings of interest
regarding the AT5S experimental protocol.
Racial Identity Group and Racial Identity Attitudes
These groups of analyses were conducted in order to assess differences between racial
identity groups with respect to their endorsements of specific attitudes about racial identity modeled
after Cross’ (1971) conceptualization of African American identity development. Our findings
demonstrate significant support for the related experimental hypotheses. In general, internalization
attitudes were reported most frequently and pre-encounter and immersion attitudes were espoused
least frequently than the other forms of racial identity attitudes assessed, F (3 ,6 1 ) = 273.15, p <
. 001.
As anticipated, the African American and biracial women of African American heritage in this
study did not differ significantly in their negative attitudes towards African American, culture, Group x
Pre-encounter Attitudes, F (1,62) = .04, p = .84. Nor was there a significant interaction found
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57
between racial identity group and racial identity attitudes representing ambivalent feelings towards
both mainstream European American as well as African American cultures, Group x Encounter
Attitudes, F (1,62) = .55, p = .46.
However, as initially proposed, African American participants’ endorsement of negative
attitudes towards aspects of European American mainstream culture were marginally higher than
those of their biracial counterparts, Group x Immersion Attitudes, F (1 ,6 2 ) = 3.08, p = .08. Lastly,
also in accordance with previous expectations, the African American participants typically held
significantly greater beliefs in the internalization of their African American identity than did the biracial
participants, Group x Internalization Attitudes, F (1,62) = 8.46, p < .01.
Racial Identity Group and Self-reported Coping Behavior
An important aim of this analysis was to examine any significant interactions between the
African American and biracial participants’ retrospective accounts for the types of coping strategies
they employed in handling prior, real-life instances of racism. More specifically, the frequency of
utilizing problem-focused, emotion-focused, transformational and disengagement forms of coping in
such past discriminatory experiences was assessed via the COPE Inventory. This portion of the
investigation was more exploratory in nature as there were no prior experimental hypotheses in mind
with regard to how the groups might differ in self-reported coping behaviors for managing specific,
previous life examples of racial prejudice and discrimination.
Overall, when comparing the four types of coping assessed via the COPE composites,
participants endorsed emotion-focused and transformational coping the most and disengagement
forms of coping the least when encountering past examples of racial discrimination, F (3 ,6 1 ) =
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58
48.92, p < .001. In general, the two racial identity groups did not differ significantly for any type of
coping behavior measured. This null finding suggests that in past experiences with racially stressful
situations, both the African American and biracial individuals in this study coped with these events in
similar ways. To elaborate on this, overall, participants did not differ in the amount of active, planning,
restraint or seeking out social support for instrumental reasons coping, Group x Problem-focused
Composite, F (1,6 2) = .02, p = .88.
Further, the participants typically did not differentiate with regard to the degree of emotional
venting, turning to religion or seeking out social support for emotional reasons they reported doing
when they faced prior discriminatory encounters, Group x Emotion-focused Composite, F (1 ,6 2 ) =
1.20, p = .28. Moreover, both the African American and biracial participants endorsed similar
frequencies of mental and behavioral disengagement (e.g. avoidance, giving up, denial, turning to
drugs/alcohol) during past experiences of racial discrimination, Group x Disengagement Composite, F
(1,62) = 1.25, p = .27. Lastly, both participant groups did not differ in their reports of teaming
something positive or growing from their past, negative encounters with racism, Group x
Transformational Coping, F (1 ,6 2 ) = 1.40,
p = .24.
Racial Identity Group and Articulated Affect Expressions
A unique feature of this study was to capture the quality of the participants’ verbalized
emotional experiences during simulated instances of racial prejudice and discrimination. Several a
priori hypotheses aimed at elucidating distinctions in how African American and biracial young adult
women of African American heritage might feel when faced with racially stressful situations. Further,
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59
more generally, hypotheses also predicted possible differences in the expressions of affect contingent
upon the specific type of racism event encountered. Table 4 summarizes the descriptive statistics for
each of the ATSS dependent variables by racism condition.
In contrast with prior expectations, the three-way Group x Scenario x Affect Expression
repeated measures MANOVA did not yield any significant interactions with racial identity group, F (6,
57) = 1.16, p = .34. This null result implies that members of both participant groups expressed
comparable affective experiences across the three different racism conditions. However, this analysis
did demonstrate a number of noteworthy simple effects.
In general, there was a highly significant main effect of Scenario found across participant
groups, whereby the Neo-Nazi hate crime scenario elicited a greater degree of affective responses
than did the Mall or Sorority discriminatory vignettes, F (2,6 1) = 27.11, p < .(X) 1. Further, a
significant main effect of Affect Expression reflected participants’ higher mean articulations for
expressed anger than for the other types of emotional verbalizations assessed, F (3 ,6 0 ) = 21.87, p
< .001. In conjunction with this finding, articulations of sadness and positive emotions were the affect
expressions found to be elicited the least across participants and racism conditions. Moreover, this
main effect of Affect Expression was modulated by a significant Scenario x Affect Expression
interaction, F (6 ,5 7 ) = 17.54, p < .001 (see Figure 1).
As predicted, among the racial discrimination ATSS conditions, it was found that
participants made significantly more frequent anger utterances during the Neo-Nazi hate
crime scenario than they did while imagining the Mall and Sorority vignettes, Scenario x Affect
Expression, F (2 ,6 1 ) = 10.98, p < .001. Interestingly and as expected, participants also tended to
express significantly greater feelings of sadness during both the Neo-Nazi and Sorority
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Table 4 : Descriptive Statistics for ATSS Dependent Variables bv Racism Condition
Mall (Individual! IN = 641
Variable M SD Min. Max.
Anger Expressions 2.11 2.60 .00 11.0
Sadness Expressions .25 .67 .00 4.0
Fear Expressions .37 .70 .00 2.0
Positive Affect
Expressions
.83 1.15 .00 7.0
Problem-focused
Intentions
3.22 1.95 .00 8.0
Emotion-focused
Intentions
2.37 1.79 .00 7.0
Avoidant
Cognitions
.39 .70 .00 3.0
Behavioral
Disengagement
Intentions
1.14 1.22 .00 6.0
Transformational
Cognitions
.01 .12 .00 1.0
Neo-Nazi (Collective! (N = 641 Sorority flntra-ethnicl IN = 641
M SD Min. Max. M SD Min. Max.
3.0 2.29 .00 9.0 1.70 2.28 .00 10.0
.72 1.37 .00 6.0 .73 1.38 .00 7.0
2.34 1.80 .00 7.0 1.12 1.50 .00 7.0
.16 .48 .00 3.0 .84 1.10 .00 4.0
4.91 2.11 1.0 9.0 2.36 1.47 .00 6.0
2.83 1.91 .00 9.0 1.48 1.45 .00 6.0
.51 .82 .00 4.0 .31 .71 .00 3.0
.22 .49 .00 2.0 .89 .86 .00 3.0
.19 .47 .00 2.0 .01 .12 .00 1.0
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3.5
Figure 1: Racism Condition x Articulated Affect Expressions
2.5
? 2
1.5
0.5
Mall
Neo44azi
'Sorority
-r r
2 3 4
Articulated Affect Expressions
Racism Condition x Articulated Affect, F (6, 57) = 17.54, p < .001; 1 = Anger, 2 = Sadness, 3 = Fear, 4 = Positive Affect.
C T >
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discriminatory encounters when compared to expressions of sadness verbalized while imagining
shopping in the mall, Scenario x Affect Expression, F (2,61) = 9.53, p < .0 0 1 . Also as anticipated,
articulated feelings of fear or anxiety were highest during the Neo-Nazi condition and least during the
Mall racial discrimination condition, Scenario x Affect Expression, F ( 2 ,6 1) = 45.53, p < .0 0 1. Lastly,
also in accordance with the experimental hypotheses, it was found that both the African American and
biracial participants in this study more frequently verbalized positive affect during the Mali and
Sorority ATSS conditions than they did during the Neo-Nazi racial hate crime condition.
Within the Mall scenario, anger was expressed more than were positive emotions, fear and
sadness, Scenario x Affect Expression, F (3,6 0) = 12.36, p < .001. Additionally, this interaction
revealed that verbalizations characterized by fear and sadness were the least likely to be articulated
during the Mall vignette. Within the Neo-Nazi hate crime condition participants tended to articulate
more expressions of anger and fear than sadness and feelings of positive affect, Scenario x Affect
Expression, F (3,60) = 44.98, p < .0 0 1. This analysis further indicated that positive emotions were
verbalized the least within this type of racial discrimination scenario.
While encountering relational aggression at the hands of two sorority sisters, participants
expressed more anger than sadness or positive affect Scenario x Affect Expression, F (3,60) = 3.23,
p = .03. This interaction further demonstrated that articulations of fear or anxiety were not
significantly different from either anger or sadness and positive emotions within this intra-ethnic
discriminatory scenario. This finding may perhaps indicate that the Sorority scenario evoked a greater
mixture of positive and negative emotions than did the Mall and Neo-Nazi ATSS conditions.
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63
Racial Identity Group and Articulated Coping Intentions
Another important objective of the current study was to ascertain possible differences in the
types of coping intentions articulated between the African American and biracial participants while
experiencing imagined racism scenarios. It was also of interest to delineate how certain types of
discriminatory situations (i.e. individual, collective, intra-ethnic) may differ in the methods of intended
coping expressed. This examination was somewhat based in previous empirical findings regarding
coping with racism yet it utilized a novel methodology. Thus it was generally anticipated that some
forms of coping would be more frequently articulated in specific racism encounters while it was also
conceived that intentions to employ particular means of managing the racial stressors could be the
same across raciaiiy-prejudiciai situations.
Contrary to initial hypotheses, the three-way Group x Scenario x Coping Intentions
multivariate ANOVA did not demonstrate any significant interactions with racial identity group, F (8,
55) = .61, p = .77. This null result may be interpreted as suggesting that both the African American
and biracial women of African American heritage in this study tended to articulate coping intentions
with similar frequencies across the different types of simulated discrimination situations. Several
significant and noteworthy simple effects did however emerge from this analysis.
Overall, the Neo-Nazi hate crime collective racism condition evoked markedly more coping
responses than were elicited by the Mall and Sorority scenarios, Scenario, F (2,61) = 44.98, p <
.001. A highly significant main effect of Coping intentions documented that in general, problem-
focused intentions were verbalized the most by participants throughout the ATSS manipulation,
followed by emotion-focused cognitions, behavioral disengagement expressions, avoidant thoughts
and transformational reframes respectively, F (4,5 9) = 168.96, p < .001. This finding evidenced
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64
preferences for intending to approach instances of racial prejudice and discrimination in an action-
oriented, problem-solving manner regardless of the type of racism encounter participants were faced
with.
The reported main effects of Scenario and Coping Intentions were further modified by a
significant Scenario x Coping Intention interaction, F (8, 55) = 18.0, p < .0 0 1 (see Figure 2).
Unexpectedly, it was found that participants uttered problem-focused coping intentions considerably
more while experiencing the Neo-Nazi hate crime scenario in comparison with similar intentions in the
other two AT5S racial discrimination conditions, Scenario x Coping Intention, F (2,6 1) = 4 4.11, p <
.001. Further, this finding evidenced that problem-focused intentions were least expressed during the
Sorority vignette.
Articulated emotion-focused cognitions (i.e. intentions to emotionally vent, complain,
physically aggress, ask for God's help) were demonstrated to be most apparent during the Mali and
Neo-Nazi racism scenarios, Scenario x Coping Intention, F ( 2 ,6 1) = 13.82, p < .001. This finding
provides limited support for previous postulations that the imagined hate crime racism vignette would
elicit greater emotion-based coping intentions than would the other types of discriminatory
experiences. An unanticipated null result regarding the specific interaction between avoidant
cognitions and racism condition was found, Scenario x Coping Intention, F (2 ,6 1) = 1.44, p = .24.
This suggests that intentions to avoid or ignore the perpetrators in the scenarios were articulated to a
similar low degree independent of the context of the racism encounter.
Interestingly, verbalized decisions to behaviorally disengage (i.e. intentions to leave the
situation or to give up attaining the desired goal within the scenario) were most frequently expressed
during the Mall and the Sorority conditions than in the Neo-Nazi hate crime condition, Scenario x
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Figure 2: Racism Condition x Articulated Coping Intentions
♦ • - Mall
> i
I
Ik
s
i
I
e
i
5 2 3 4 1
Articulated Coping Intentions
R a c is m Condition x Articulated C oping, F (8, 55) = 18.0, p < .001.
1 = P roblem -focused, I = E motion-focused, 3 = Avoidant, 4 = Behavioral D isengagem ent, 5 = Transformational.
66
Coping Intention, F (2 ,6 1 ) = 22.27, p < .001. This finding lends support to initial predictions.
Furthermore, the tendency to put a positive spin on a negative situation was more often uttered while
imagining an encounter with a group of adolescent racists than was expressed when confronting two
gossiping sorority sisters or while receiving repeated, poor service in a mall, Scenario x Coping
Intention, F (1,6 2) = 9.27, p < .01.
Further interpretation of the overall Scenario x Coping Intention interaction demonstrated
several significant within-scenario effects. These within-vignette findings indicated some significant
similarities as well as noteworthy distinctions in the patterns of voiced coping intentions among the
three different ATSS racial discrimination conditions. More specifically, when having to bee multiple
examples of neglectful service in a shopping mail, participants generally planned to use active,
problem-focused coping strategies to a greater degree than emotion-based methods, behavioral
disengagement intentions, avoidance and transformational coping cognitions respectively, Scenario x
Coping Intention, F (4,5 9) = 88.78, p < .001.
Moreover within the Neo-Nazi racism scenario, problem-focused intentions were articulated
significantly more frequently than were the other forms of coping assessed, Scenario x Coping
Intention, F (4,5 9) = 102.17, p < .001. This interaction further indicated that emotion-focused
cognitions were the second most frequent type of coping intention expressed during this hate crime
condition. Avoidance and intentions to behavioraily withdraw from the situation were verbalized the
least in this scenario.
Similarly, within the more ambiguous, intra-ethnic discrimination ATSS Sorority condition, the
African American and biracial participants tended to voice intentions of actively problem-solving and
planning more frequently than they intended to utilize the other types of coping methods measured,
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67
Scenario x Coping Intention, F (4 , 59) = 73.14, p < .001. Notably, this analysis further demonstrated
that emotion-focused intentions and articulated decisions to behavioraily disengage were not
significantly different from each other. Both of these coping intentions, though, were expressed
considerably more often than were avoidant and transformational cognitions in this imagined
discrimination encounter.
The Relationships Among Racial Identity Attitudes. Hardiness and the Psychological Impact of and
Coping Intentions Associated With Simulated Racial Discrimination Experiences
The previous findings regarding African American and biracial women of African
American parentage described these participants’ affective and coping experiences during simulated,
racially stressful circumstances. The aim was to highlight potential between- and within-group
interactions with affective expressions and coping intentions while encountering imagined racist
events. However, the primary objective of this final section of quantitative analyses was to explore
more globally how the particular attitudes about racial identity and the general hardy tendencies one
holds were related to the verbalized emotions and coping intentions vocalized during simulated
encounters with racial prejudice and discrimination. It was of further interest to assess how these
beliefs were associated with the psychological impact of simulated racial discrimination experiences in
the immediate aftermath of the realistic albeit imagined confrontations. Tables 5 ,6 and 7 chart the
significant inter-correlations for this group of analyses. All reported marginal correlations are
significant at the p < .10 level. Any other correlation coefficients presented are significant at least at
the p < .05 level.
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68
Racial Identity Attitudes. Hardiness and Pre-AT5S Psychological Functioning. Firstly, it was of
scientific and clinical interest to ascertain the relationships between the two main individual difference
variables examined in this study. An additional purpose to the analyses described in this section was
to explore the association of Racial Identity Attitudes and Hardiness to current aspects of participants’
psychological functioning before they encountered the simulated racial discrimination scenarios. As
shown in Table 5 and as anticipated, components of racial identity attitudes and hardiness were
significantly correlated with one another as well as to indices of pre-ATSS psychological functioning.
Pre-encounter attitudes, those depicting an aversion towards African American culture, were
negatively related to overall Hardy Attitudes (r = - .53), as well as to each of the particular
components comprising hardiness. Racial identity attitudes reflecting confusion for both mainstream
European American and African American cultural views were also marginally negatively associated
with total Hardy Attitude scores along with specific Control beliefs. Immersion attitudes, characterizing
a predominant pro-African American psychological orientation and a low tolerance for European
American mainstream cultural values were distinctively negatively associated with overall Hardy
Attitudes (r = -.30) as well as being more strongly related in a negative manner to particular Control
Attitudes (r = -.39). Also as expected, Internalization attitudes were robustly related to overall Hardy
Attitudes (r = .33), Commitment Attitudes (r = .29) and were marginally associated with Challenge
Attitudes (r = .22) in the positive direction. These correlations generally demonstrated that as more
psychologically adaptive attitudes about racial identity increased so did aspects of hardy dispositional
beliefs. Further, as less psychologically adaptive racial identity attitude endorsements increased,
hardiness and aspects of it tended to decrease.
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Table 5: Intercorrelations Between Hardiness and Racial Identity Attitude Dependent Variables
Variable 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8.
1. Hardy Attitudes .81** .65** .64 ** -.53** -.21 -.30* .33**
2. Commitment Attitudes - .28* .35** -.52** NS NS .29*
3. Challenge Attitudes - NS -.30* NS NS .22
4. Control Attitudes - -.26* -.21 -.39** NS
5. Pre-encounter Attitudes - NS NS -.50**
6. Encounter Attitudes - .27* N S
7. Immersion Attitudes - NS
8. Internalization Attitudes -
Note. Correlation significant at the p < .10 level. * Correlation significant at the p < .05 level. ** Correlation significant at the p < .01 level. NS = non-significant.
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Table 6: Intercorrelations Between Hardiness. PANAS. R SE and Post-study Dependent Variables
Variable 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13.
1. Hardy Attitudes .33** .27* -.34** NS .50** .45” NS .27* NS
2. Commitment Attitudes .31* .24 -.30* NS .56” .41” NS .29* NS
3. Challenge Attitudes .24 NS NS NS .25* .23 NS NS NS
4. Control Attitudes NS NS -.39** NS NS .29* -.24 .28* NS
5. Pre-ATSS Positive Affect - .77** .23 .32” .24 .21 NS NS NS
6. Post-ATSS Positive Affect - .24 .22 .23 .25* NS .26* .31*
7. Pre-ATSS Negative Affect - .66” NS NS .32* NS NS
8. Post-ATSS Negative Affect - NS NS .44” -.28* .24
9. Pre-ATSS Self-esteem - .83” N S .23 NS
10. Post-ATSS Self-esteem - NS .21 .23
11. Post-study Thoughts - NS NS
12. Post-study Preparedness - N S
13. Post-study Interest -
Note. Correlation significant at the p < .10 level. * Correlation significant at the p < .05 level. " Correlation significant at the p < .01 level. NS = non-significant.
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Table 7: Intercorrelations Between Racial Identity Attitude. PANAS. RSE and COPE Dependent Variables
Variable Pre-encounter
Attitudes
Encounter
Attitudes
Immersion
Attitudes
Internalization
Attitudes
Pre-ATSS
Positive Affect
-.26* .28* NS .38”
Post-ATSS
Positive Affect
-.35” NS NS .35”
Pre-ATSS
Negative Affect
NS NS N S NS
Post-ATSS
Negative Affect
NS .35” NS NS
Pre-ATSS
Self-esteem
-.36” NS NS .36”
Post-ATSS
Self-esteem
-.38” NS NS .28*
Post-study Thoughts NS NS N S NS
Post-study
Preparedness
-.50’ * -.43” N S NS
Post-study Interest NS NS NS .42**
Note. Correlation is significant at the p < .10 level. * Correlation is significant at the p < .05 level. ” Correlation is significant at the p < .01 level. NS = non-significant.
72
As predicted, the level of positive affect reported before experiencing the ATSS racism
conditions was negatively associated with pre-encounter racial identity attitudes (r = - .26). Whereas
there were strong positive relationships found between pre-ATSS positive affect and Encounter (r =
.28), Internalization (r = .38) and general Hardy Attitudes (r = .3 3 ). Further, the degree of positive
emotional status reported prior to the simulated racially stressful situations was also positively related
to the Commitment (r = .31) and Challenge (r = .24) attitude components of hardiness. Pre-ATSS
self-reported positive affect was thus typically shown to have increased when aspects of hardiness
and less extreme, psychologically balanced views of racial identity increased.
Interestingly and contrary to original expectations, none of the types of racial identity
attitudes were significantly associated with endorsements of negative affect felt before the ATSS
experimental protocol. However, level of pre-ATSS negative affect was markedly related to overall
Hardy Attitudes (r = - .34), Commitment Attitudes (r = - .30) and was most strongly correlated with
specific Challenge Attitude scores (r = - .39) in the negative direction. As the amount of self-reported
negative emotion prior to the ATSS racism encounters increased, endorsed levels of hardiness and
components of this overall attitudinal philosophy tended to decrease.
Finally, in accordance with experimental predictions, individual differences in attitudes about
racial identity and hardiness beliefs were significantly associated with the level of self-esteem reported
before the ATSS scenarios. Pro-European American/anti-African American views were strongly
negatively correlated with pre-ATSS feelings of self-acceptance and self-worth (r = - .36). Endorsing
an internalized African American identity coupled with a tolerant orientation towards non-African
American cultures, however, was positively associated with pre-ATSS self-esteem (r = .35). Similarly,
total Hardy Attitudes (r = .50), Challenge Attitudes (r = .25) and Commitment Attitudes (.56) were all
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73
significantly related to participants’ pre-ATSS endorsements of positive feelings of self-acceptance and
self-worth. In effect, participants reporting high self-esteem before the ATSS portion of the study also
tended to have high endorsements of hardiness and psychologically adaptive (e.g. internalization)
attitudes about racial identity.
Racial Identity Attitudes. Hardiness. Articulated Affect and Articulated Coping Intentions. This
second set of correlational analyses aimed to document the relationships between attitudes about
racial identity and hardiness measured before the ATSS racial discrimination vignettes with the
articulated affect expressions and intentions to cope verbalized during the simulated racism
scenarios. Further, an original feature to this study’s design was to explore the potential link between
the voiced affective experiences and coping intentions participants expressed while imagining the
three racism conditions. As illustrated in Tables 8 and 9, several significant relationships between
these dependent variables were evidenced.
Within the ATSS racial discrimination encounters, the more participants articulated problem-
focused intentions, the less likely they would express feelings of fear or anxiety (r = - .3 1). Further,
there was a marginally significant trend whereby verbalizations of anger were negatively associated
with vocalized plans to actively problem-solve during the simulated racism experiences (r = - .23).
Notably and as anticipated, articulations of positive feelings while being imaginally exposed to racial
discrimination were strongly associated with transformational coping cognitions (r = .3 6 ). This
suggests that the higher the positive affect expressed, the more likely the participants also verbalized
thoughts characterized by looking on the bright side of the situation.
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Table 8: Intercorrelations Between Hardiness and ATSS Index Dependent Variables
Variable 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13.
1. Hardiness Attitudes NS NS NS .38** NS NS NS -.36** NS
2. Commitment Attitudes NS NS NS .43*’ NS NS -.24 -.37** .24
3. Challenge Attitudes NS N S NS NS N S NS NS -.27* NS
4. Control Attitudes NS .24 NS .31* NS NS NS N S NS
5. Anger Index - .38** .54** .33** -.23 NS NS NS NS
6. Sadness Index - .45** NS NS N S N S NS NS
7. Fear Index - .29* -.31* NS NS NS N S
8. Positive Affect Index - NS NS NS NS .36**
9. Problem-focused Index - NS .27* -.34** .29*
10. Emotion-focused Index - N S NS -.21
11. Avoidant Index - NS NS
12. Behavioral Disengagement Index - NS
13. Transformational Index -
Note. Correlation significant at the p < .10 level. * Correlation significant at the p < .05 level. ** Correlation significant at the p < .01 level. NS = non-significant.
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Table 9: Imercorrdations Between Racial Identity Attitudes and ATSS Index Dependent Variables
Variable Pre-encounter
Attitudes
Encounter
Attitudes
Immersion
Attitudes
Internalization
Attitudes
Anger Index NS NS NS NS
Sadness Index NS NS NS NS
Fear Index NS NS NS NS
Positive Affect Index NS NS N S NS
Problem-focused Index NS NS NS NS
Emotion-focused Index NS NS .23 NS
Avoidant Index NS NS NS NS
Behavioral Disengagement Index .35** NS N S NS
Transformational Index NS NS NS NS
Note. Correlation significant at the p < .10 level. * Correlation significant at the p < .05 level. ** Correlation significant at the
p < .01 level. NS = non-significant.
-^j
cn
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Also in support of prior hypotheses, the greater the level of total Hardy Attitudes (r = .38),
Commitment Attitudes (r = .43) and Control Attitudes (r = .31), the greater the frequency of positive
affect expressed during the ATSS conditions. Surprisingly, a marginally significant trend evidenced a
positive relationship between articulated sadness expressions and Control Attitudes (r = .24). This
finding appeared to indicate that the more often participants expressed sadness while experiencing
the simulated situations, the higher their beliefs about how much control they felt in effectively
manipulating aspects in their environment.
Contrary to original hypotheses, problem-focused coping intentions expressed during the
ATSS racial prejudice vignettes were not significantly correlated with any of the stages of racial identity
attitudes nor with any of the hardiness measures. However, according to expectations, verbalized
intentions to behavioraily disengage from the imagined racism encounters were significantly
associated with both pre-ATSS measures of hardiness beliefs and attitudes about racial identity. More
specifically, as attitudes reflecting early stages of African American racial identity development (i.e.
pre-encounter) increased, so did articulated decisions to give up attaining the desired situational
goals when faced with repeated instances of racial discrimination during the ATSS manipulation (r =
.35). This type of verbalized coping intention was also, as anticipated, significantly negatively
associated with overall Hardy Attitudes (r = - .3 6 ), with beliefs about how committed or involved one
is with their environment (r = - .37) as well as with the tendency to appraise stressors as interesting
challenges (r = - .27).
As predicted, a statistical trend indicated that as immersion attitudes increased, emotion-
focused intentions also tended to increase somewhat (r = .23). Thus, the more a participant
endorsed positive feelings about African American culture and pessimistic views towards European
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77
American culture, the more they tended to articulate intentions to manage the simulated racism
scenarios with emotion-based methods (i.e. venting feelings, intentions to physically aggress against
perpetrators, seeking social support for emotional reasons).
Commitment Attitudes were also marginally related to Avoidant (r = - .24) and
Transformational (r = .24) coping cognitions vocalized during the ATSS racism scenarios. This finding
lends some support to the hypothesis that the more participants expressed intentions to avoid or
ignore the perpetrators in the scenarios, the lower their reported thoughts about how involved they
tend to be in their environments. Further, this marginally significant result suggests that as
articulations that positively reframed the situation increased, attitudes about finding meaning in one’s
environment also tended to increase somewhat.
Racial Identity Attitudes. Hardiness and Post-ATSS Psychological Functioning. As one of the
hallmark features of this investigation, this section highlights important relationships found between
the primary individual difference variables and the dependent variables reflecting the state of
participants’ psychological experiences immediately following the simulated racism events. Several of
the a priori experimental hypotheses regarding these relationships were supported. Please refer back
to Tables 6 and 7 for a summary of these findings.
As hypothesized, attitudes reflecting the early stages of racial identity development (pre
encounter) were negatively associated with the level of positive affect endorsed following the A T S S
discrimination encounters (r = - .35). Also as predicted, the relationship between pre-ATSS Hardy
Attitudes and post-ATSS positive emotional status remained strongly a positive one (r = .27). Reports
of positive affect experienced after facing imagined racism events was also found to be marginally
related to Commitment Attitudes (r = .2 4 ).
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78
Interestingly and unexpectedly, Encounter Attitudes that were significantly related to pre-
ATSS endorsements of positive affect were strongly associated with the level of negative emotional
status after the ATSS protocol (r = .3 5 ). Somewhat in support of previous expectations, the
correlation found between self-reported post-ATSS negative affect and Control Attitudes (r = - . 19)
was approaching marginal significance.
In accordance with proposed findings, participants’ self-reported feelings of self-worth and
self-acceptance after experiencing imagined racist encounters remained strongly negatively related to
early stages of racial identity attitudes (pre-encounter; r = - .38) and strongly positively related to
later stages of racial identity attitudes (internalization; r = .28). Further, post-ATSS self-esteem
continued to share a significantly high and positive relationship with overall Hardy Attitudes (r = .45),
Commitment Attitudes (r = .41) and marginally correlated with Challenge Attitudes (r = .23).
Interestingly, Control Attitudes were not significantly related to pre-ATSS endorsements of self-esteem.
However, in the aftermath of simulated racism experiences, participants’ reported self-esteem was
positively associated with beliefs about the amount of control one has over effectively managing facets
of their environment (r = .29).
Post-ATSS Thoughts were not found to be markedly related to any of the racial identity
attitudes or to overall Hardy Attitude scores and its components. However, post-ATSS psychological
preparedness beliefs were strongly associated with both Pre-encounter (r = - .50) and Encounter (r
= - .49) Attitudes in the negative direction. Further as predicted, thoughts of being prepared to
handle such instances of racial discrimination that were encountered during the ATSS portion of the
study were also found to have strong relationships with Hardy Attitudes (r = .27), Commitment
Attitudes (r = .29) and Control Attitudes (r = .28). Regarding post-ATSS Interest, as anticipated, this
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dependent variable was found to be highly related to pre-ATSS internalization racial identity attitudes
(r = .42). However, unexpectedly, no significant relationships were found between endorsements of
how interesting participants found the ATSS scenarios and aspects of hardiness.
Articulated Affect. Articulated Coping Intentions and Post-ATSS Psychological Functioning.
This cluster of results explored the associations between the affect and coping intentions vocalized
during the simulated racism encounters and indices representing the immediate psychological
aftermath experienced by the study participants. As shown in Table 10, none of the ATSS dependent
variables were significantly related to positive affect, negative affect or level of self-esteem reported
following the ATSS manipulation. Nor were there any noteworthy relationships found between the
articulated thoughts and retrospective accounts of how interesting participants found the ATSS
experience. There were, however, a few notable correlations between the ATSS dependent variables
and the Post-study Thoughts and Preparedness variables.
The more frequent the articulated positive emotions during the ATSS scenarios, the more
positive the thoughts the participants reported afterwards (r = - .27). The correlation is in the
negative direction since on the one-item Post-study Thoughts question, lower scores indicated
positive endorsements while higher scores reflected more reported negative thoughts. Thoughts
subsequent to the ATSS portion of the study were found to be marginally associated with avoidant
coping cognitions (r = - .2 3 ). This trend appeared to indicate that the greater the verbalizations
uttered reflecting intentions to avoid or ignore the perpetrators, the more positively participants would
describe their post-study thoughts. Notably, as reflections of preparedness increased, the likelihood
of having expressed intentions to behavioraily disengage from the simulated racism situations
significantly decreased (r = -.2 9 ).
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Table 10: Intercorrelations Between ATSS Index. Post-PANAS. Post-RSE and Post-studv Dependent Variables
Variable Post-ATSS
Positive
Affect
Post-ATSS
Negative
Affect
Post-ATSS
Self-esteem
Post-study
Thoughts
Post-study
Preparedness
Post-study
Interest
Anger Index NS NS NS NS NS NS
Sadness Index NS NS NS NS NS NS
Fear Index NS NS NS NS NS N S
Positive Affect
Index
NS NS NS ■ 2 7 * NS NS
Problem-focused
Index
NS NS NS NS NS NS
Emotion-focused
Index
NS NS N S NS NS NS
Avoidant Index NS NS N S -.23 NS NS
Behavioral
Disengagement
Index
NS NS N S NS -.29* NS
Transformational
Index
NS NS N S NS NS NS
Note. Correlation is significant at the p < .10 level. * Correlation is significant at the p < .05 level. ** Correlation is significant at the p < .01 level. NS = non-significant.
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Articulated Coping Intentions and Self-reported Coping Behaviors. This study employed the
COPE Inventory’s subscales as the primary model for coding articulated coping intentions. Thus, it was
of interest to document any significant relationships between self-reported coping behaviors for a past
experience of racial prejudice and discrimination and those plans to cope that were verbalized in an
online fashion during the ATSS racism encounters. Since the relevant COPE subscales were collapsed
into an overall Disengagement Composite, the Avoidant Index and the Behavioral Disengagement
Index from the ATSS data were combined to form the Total Disengagment Index for these
comparisons.
Two significant correlations between the COPE Composites and the ATSS Coping Intention
Indexes were evidenced (see Table 11). Firstly, as participants articulated more problem-focused
intentions during the ATSS racially stressful vignettes, the reports of mentally and behavioraily
disengaging from a real-life instance of racism significantly decreased (r = - .27). Also, as the
tendency to utilize transformational cognitive coping techniques when confronted with past examples
of racial discrimination increased, the tendency to behavioraily disengage and express avoidant
cognitions during the simulated situations decreased (r = -.29). Further, a marginally significant
trend was found between forms of articulated disengagement (avoidance and giving up) intentions
and self-reported emotion-focused coping methods (r = - .24).
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Table 11: Intercorrelations Between ATSS Coping Index and COPE Composite Dependent Variables
Variable Problem-focused
Index
Emotion-focused
Index
Total Disengagement
Index
Transformational
Index
Problem-focused Composite NS NS NS NS
Emotion-focused Composite NS NS -.23 NS
Disengagement Composite -.27* NS NS NS
Transformational Composite NS NS -.29* NS
Note. Correlation significant at the p < .10 level. * Correlation significant at the p < .05 level. " Correlation significant at the p < .01 level. NS = non-significant.
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Discussion and Implications
The current investigation sought to integrate four empirical literatures in order to gain
greater insight about coping with racist events. The first aim was to explore distinctions between
African American and biracial women of African American heritage in their current psychological
functioning, their experiences with responding to racial discrimination and their post-racist encounter
psychological status. Secondly, this study assessed using the ATSS paradigm how different forms of
racism may incite different affective and coping responses among participants. A third objective was to
ascertain the relationship that individual differences in hardiness beliefs and racial identity attitudes
have with the psychological experiences during and with the short-term psychological outcomes
following racial discrimination encounters. Results from this endeavor have both supported previous
work as well as pointed in some new directions. A discussion of significant findings and their important
implications for the study of coping with racial bigotry ensues.
Biracial Identity. Psychological Functioning and Coping with Racism
The spotlight on race and re-evaluating the strength of its meaning and value have
begun to receive more attention in the media in recent years (Meacham, 2000). This has largely been
due to the contemporary phenomenon of steadily growing populations of individuals of multiple ethnic
heritages growing up in the U.S. In addition to biracialism being a statistical and sociopolitical
phenomenon it has proven to be an important area of scientific and clinical inquiry within the field o f
psychology and more specifically mental health.
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The crux of this discourse on the psychological ramifications of being bom of two
parents differing in racial or ethnic background has centered on the issue of identity development.
Navigating the formation of identity in the most harmonious fashion would seem to be a particularly
challenging process for individuals of multiple racial descents. There has been a debate between the
clinical and experimental camps as to whether or not biracial identity status is a kind of double-edged
sword.
Clinical interviews have demonstrated that biracial individuals of African American
heritage for example have often encountered discrimination from not only European Americans but
from members of the African American community as well (Lyles et al.„ 1985). The possibility of not
being fully accepted by either whites or blacks has been posited to be of critical importance to the
psychological well-being of biracial children (Lyles et al., 1985; Shackford, 1984). Thus, is being
biracial a risk factor or a resiliency factor for the development of psychiatric and adjustment
disorders?
Clinical case studies have asserted that biracial children and adolescents often present
with identity confusion concerns and are vulnerable to psychological distress (Brown, 1995; McRoy et
al., 1986). In contrast, other clinical researchers have questioned the dire clinical picture painted by
the case study method since controlled comparison groups are seldom included. In the few studies
that have been published that aimed to find distinctions in the psychological health between biracial
and monoracial African American children, the results seem less bleak (e.g. no significant between-
group differences on indices of psychosocial functioning) (Cauce et al., 1992; Gibbs, 1989; Jacobs,
1977).
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However little research has systematically investigated how college-aged biracial
young adults compare to their same-age African American peers not only on indices of current
psychological functioning but also on their affective and coping experiences when faced with racial
discrimination. Further, how might changes in psychological functioning differ between both groups?
The findings from this analysis appear to lend significant support to the notion that biracial women of
African American heritage are on par psychologically (e.g. similar feelings of self-worth and self
acceptance) to their monoracial counterparts before, during as well as in the immediate aftermath of
simulated racist events.
Prior to experiencing the imagined racial prejudice encounters, both African American and
biracial participants exhibited similar high levels of hardy attitudes, self-esteem and positive affect.
Reports of negative affect were low for all participants before the ATSS experimental protocol.
Comparable endorsements of psychologically healthy beliefs of hardiness, self-worth, self-acceptance
and significantly higher reported positive affect than negative emotional status between groups were
anticipated as extensions of past research findings (Cauce et al., 1992).
These null findings suggest that presuming differences in the current psychological
functioning between biracial young adult women and monoracial African American women solely based
on racial identification may be too simplistic a notion held by previous clinical examiners in this area
and perhaps by the public at large. A further examination of specific demographic features within this
participant population would suggest that since there were no highly significant differences in SES,
region of the country and marital status of parents, these women more than likely had similar home,
school and neighborhood environments. In turn it may be speculated that such shared environments
would foster or facilitate similar typical psychological experiences for these individuals over time.
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Previous examinations have emphasized the importance o f the involvement o f socio-cultural
structures interacting to promote psychological health among children of color (McRoy et al., 1986;
Pinderhughes, 1995).
A general effect of racial identity attitudes was observed in this investigation. Internalization
attitudes were endorsed more frequently than the other types of racial identity attitudes by members
of both groups. This suggests that the African American and biracial women of African American
heritage in this study most strongly reported a balanced perspective about racial identity. This view
holds that participants are generally comfortable with identifying with African American culture and
have significant tolerance for mainstream cultural values and beliefs.
In accordance with experimental predictions, the women in our study did endorse
substantial differences with respect to their attitudes about racial identity. The participant groups did
not significantly differ in reported levels of earlier stage pro-white/anti-black attitudes (pre-encounter)
nor in beliefs about their ambivalence or confusion towards European American and African American
cultures (encounter). However the African American women in this study more strongly endorsed
attitudes reflecting the later stages of racial identity attitudes in comparison with the biracial
participants. More specifically, a trend emerged whereby the African American participants felt more
strongly about being involved in aspects of black culture, espousing predominantly black cultural
values and exhibiting marginally lower tolerance for white mainstream American culture than did the
biracial participants. Furthermore, endorsing an internalized African American racial identity was
significantly more likely among the monoracial participants than among the biracial individuals
included in this study.
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87
These findings are not surprising in light of the significant differences found in aspects of the
participants' current social circles. The biraaaf participants were more likely to have mostly white
groups of friends than the African American participants. The biracial women as well more often
preferred to date individuals that were not of African American background to a greater extent than
were their monoracial counterparts in this study. It is possible that the groups of friends and dating
partners one surrounds themselves with interacts to affect the strength of ethnic identification among
biracial individuals. Although not presently assessed, it is possible that differences in the ethnic
composition of participants’ past friendships before attending college showed similar patterns and
were maintained once college began.
Furthermore, theory and research suggest that studying the internalization of an integrated
biracial identity may be important to understanding psychological processes in biracial cohorts
(Poston, 1990; Hall, 1980). For biracial individuals, aligning themselves predominantly with African
American cultural values may not be the most psychologically adaptive response. However, examining
the relationship between endorsed level of African American identity and European American identity
for example may be more informative than simply assessing either identity preferences alone for
biracial individuals. In other words, this difference found between groups for an internalized African
American identity may simply reflect the biracial participants’ attitudes that African American identity
may not fully capture their definitions of who they are racially or ethnically.
This finding additionally has substantial clinical and practical implications. Stages of racial
identity attitude have been related to ethnic preferences for psychotherapists (Parham & Helms,
1981). Thus considering the level of specific cultural orientation attitudes one holds may be an
important clinical tool for dient-therapist matching more generally for African American individuals but
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88
perhaps more particularly for biracial persons of African American parentage. Further, since significant
distinctions in certain aspects of racial identity attitudes have been demonstrated in this study’s
sample, it is likely that such differences could be apparent in previous empirical examinations
assessing racial identity attitudes and its psychological correlates. Without the clarification of which
participants are of multiple ethnic heritages in these scientific investigations, inaccurate estimations of
overall levels of racial identity attitudes may be apparent.
In general, participants had similar affective experiences and demonstrated shared
coping intentions during the simulated racism events. The absence of significant between group
findings while experiencing the intra-group scenario and the hate crime vignette was unanticipated.
Biracial individuals have been described as suffering discrimination from multiple cultural groups, both
African American and European American (Funderburg, 1994; Lyles et al., 1985). With this in mind,
the present study predicted that the biracial participants may have had a greater store of experiences
in the past in having to deal with intra-ethnic instances of prejudice, of not being considered “black
enough". Further, this study provided limited evidence that African Americans may endorse greater
immersion with facets of African American culture and exhibit lower tolerance for white mainstream
culture than biracial groups.
Speculations of more frequent within-group encounters and somewhat more tolerance for
members of other cultural groups on the part of the biracial participants were thought to influence
their psychological experiences and coping during scenarios involving race-related stress. It was
anticipated that being less immersed in African American culture and potentially having more
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89
experience with intra-ethnic discrimination would lead to the biracial participants expressing less
negative affect and articulating less emotion-focused coping responses in reaction to the Sorority and
hate crime conditions.
However, lack of significant findings in articulated affect and coping intentions would seem to
indicate that it is likely that both participant groups have similar past experiences with relational
aggression at the hands of African American females. The distinction found in immersion attitudes
between groups was marginally significant. As such, this trend may not be clinically significant or
meaningful when experiencing simulated racial discrimination. Further, the potential effects of
attitudes representing strong identification with black culture and little tolerance for white, mainstream
culture on the emotional reactions and coping between African American and biracial women of African
American heritage during such instances may be negligible due to the relatively small sample size
included in this study.
Additionally, an alternative explanation for this null result is offered. It may be that
independent of how strongly one identifies with African American heritage just simply being able to
identify with black culture or identity at all in a context that makes that part of the person’s identity
most salient may be enough to elicit similar levels of negative affect and coping responses. Once
again it may lend support to the notion that racial or ethnic identity be conceptualized both as existing
along a continuum but also that certain features of the context may interact with identity in a present
or absent fashion.
Following the simulated racial discrimination situations, indices of self-reported positive affect
and self-esteem remained high. Interestingly in contrast to a priori expectations, positive affect did not
change as a result of the racism simulations. Negative affect, however, as anticipated, did increase
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90
significantly as a result of experiencing the imagined racism events. This pattern of unchanged
positive emotional status while self-reported negative affect increased may be beneficial for the study
participants’ emotional health following stressful experiences with racism. Research investigating the
PANAS scale correlates with other measures of psychological functioning has demonstrated that
significant levels of self-reported state depression are associated with decreased positive affect and
increased negative affect (Watson et al., 1988).
Thus, it is likely that the negative affect experienced by the participants was externally
directed, high arousal negative emotion (e.g. anger at the perpetrator, situational anxiety) as
opposed to involving self-blame and low arousal sadness. However, it is unclear as to whether or not
participants’ statistically significant increase in self-reported negative affect following the simulated
racism encounters is related to clinical or sub-clinical levels of anxiety as this was not specifically
assessed during the current investigation. Type of negative affect evoked along with the extent to
which positive feelings are affected by racism stress may have important clinical implications for
assessing vulnerabilities for the development of depression and anxiety subsequent to being exposed
to such encounters.
It is also notable to highlight that reported self-esteem increased somewhat over the course
of the experiment. This marginally significant finding lends further support to preservations in the
positive psychological functioning of participants at least in the short term, immediate aftermath of
racist encounters. Increases in self-esteem or feelings of self-worth following simulated racial
discrimination may be a testament to the participants’ sense of empowerment or self-efficacy in being
able to manage the stress elicited by the scenarios.
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91
A noteworthy difference in the post-ATSS psychological functioning of participants was
observed. More specifically, the African American participants were more likely to describe their post
study thoughts as positive than did the biracial participants. The one-item question assessing the
valence of post-racism experience cognitions may be construed as a rudimentary indicator of
ruminations. In this way the African American women in this study endorsed more positive ruminations
than did their biracial counterparts. Why this may be the case is unclear based on the collected data.
One possibility is that the ATSS scenarios may have triggered more memories of similar, real-life,
negative experiences with racial prejudice and discrimination for the biracial participants to reflect
upon.
When asked to document the coping strategies they utilized in previous real-life instances of
racial discrimination, participant groups demonstrated no significant differences in how they managed
the racial stressors. The African American and biracial women in this study endorsed problem-
focused, emotion-focused, disengagement and transformational methods with similar frequencies in
response to previously experienced racism. Overall, mentally or behaviorally disengaging from the
racism events were reported the least by participants. The use of approach methods (e.g. problem-
focused and emotion-focused) in handling racism found in this investigation supports previous
findings (Feagin et al., 1994; Plummer et al., 19% ).
Disengagement coping has been cited as an indicator of poor psychological outcome and
psychosocial functioning in the coping with racism literature (Utsey et al., 2 0 0 0 ). Therefore, these
general self-report findings would seem to indicate that members of both participant groups have
responded to instances of racism in the past typically with psychologically adaptive coping
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92
behaviors to a greater extent than less helpful means. Do retrospective accounts of coping with racial
stress translate into online coping intentions during the actual racism experience? We turn to this
question now.
Distinctions in the Psychological Experiences and Coping Intentions During Different Types
of Racism Encounters
Racial bigotry is a reality that members of ethnic minority groups are often prepared to
encounter during their lifetimes. The psychological impact of racial discrimination for African
Americans has been shown to be particularly deleterious (Essed, 1990; Feagin et al., 1984; Utsey et
al., 1 9% ). Thus much research has shifted from focusing solely on the nature of prejudice and
understanding the perpetrators of racism to examining and delineating the multiple ways individuals
cope with racial stress.
Previous work in this area has demonstrated that persons of African heritage attribute
different utility or effectiveness to different means of coping with racism (States, 1994). This
substantiates the idea that some forms of coping may be more adaptive than others for psychological
well-being. Furthermore, recent analyses have shown that differences in coping strategies often are
associated with different forms of racially stressful experiences (e.g. individual v. institutional v.
cultural) (Utsey et al., 2000). Moreover, self-report indicators of particular coping methods have been
shown to vary in their relationship to endorsements of self-esteem and life-satisfaction (Utsey et al.,
2000).
However, understanding the process of emotional responding and coping during racial
discrimination events as well as articulating the relationship of affect and coping to post-event
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93
psychological experiences had never been explored previously. Additionally, comparing emotional
reactions and coping intentions among different types of racism encounters was important to the
current investigation to demonstrate differences in the psychological impact everyday racism versus
acute racially-biased hate crime activity might have on women of African American heritage. This latter
analysis may have particularly important implications for several sectors of society at large: mental
health interventions, public policy and criminal law.
The current study was able to demonstrate that different racist scenarios elicit different
amounts of emotional responding. As predicted, a racially-motivated hate crime simulation evoked
greater amounts of anger and fear than did the other two racism conditions. Everyday chronic racial
stressors such as encountering bad service in a mall and facing gossiping African American peers do
appear to arouse negative emotional experiences among participants as well. However this study has
shown that a racially-biased verbal assault and threat of physical violence by a collective racist group
have a significantly stronger negative psychological impact than the other forms of racism assessed,
at least while experiencing the simulated encounters.
This finding is significant for several reasons. Firstly, this illustrates the utility of the ATSS
paradigm in both eliciting and differentiating the emotional experiences stimulated by varying racially
stressful situations. Secondly, recent work investigating the psychological impact of hate crimes on
African American groups has only looked at affective reactions while being a witness or bystander to a
visually presented physical assault in male college students (Craig, 1999). The present study has
been able to utilize auditory stimuli to capture the affective nature of the psychological experience of
hate crime victimization in female groups of African American heritage. Thirdly, managing the stress
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94
and emotions associated with acute, rarer, racist hate crimes may warrant specific psychological
interventions than may dealing with the daily, expected encounters of interracial and intra-racial
discrimination.
Sadness as predicted was expressed equally by the participants in the Sorority and the Neo-
Nazi conditions. This sadness tended to describe feelings of disappointment in how despite modem
times and technological progress the vestiges of extreme racial mistrust are still alive and well.
Further, it was reaffirmed that an unwritten standard of what it means to be African American within
the culture remains a significant area of contention and division among members of the African
American community.
It is also important to note that the fear or anxiety expressed during the more ambiguous
Sorority intra-ethnic prejudice condition was greater than what was vocalized during the Mall vignette.
This finding may be related to the participants' feelings that they were being negatively evaluated or
assessed by the two sorority sisters but were unsure as to why that was the case until the end of the
scenario. Ambiguity tolerance, when not all of the facts are supplied initially, may underlie the greater
negative affective response (e.g. anxiety and feelings of discomfort) elicited by this particular
prejudicial event than for the more explicit interracial racist Mall encounter.
This investigation also contributes support to past research which has consistently indicated
that different forms of racism may call for different types of coping responses (Feagin, 1991; Lalonde,
Majumder & Parris, 1995; Utsey et al., 2000). However unlike past research it is one of the first
studies to examine coping intentions during an especially intense racist hate crime event.
Interestingly, contrary to what was expected, problem-focused cognitions dominated the participants’
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verbalized coping intentions during the racially-motivated hate crime incident than during the other
forms of racism experienced in the laboratory.
Thus it would appear that despite reporting high levels of anger and fear during this
scenario, the threat of physical harm at the hands of a group of racist adolescents significantly
influenced the coping responses of the participant groups. More specifically, there was a marked
tendency for this type of racist encounter to urge the participants to actively problem-solve, to
behaviorally restrain themselves in order to give most of their attentional resources to the current
situation and to promptly seek out social support (e.g. calling the police) for assistance to a greater
degree than was articulated in the everyday racism (Mall) and the intra-ethnic discriminatory
experience (Sorority). Furthermore, as somewhat expected, this emotionally-charged act of hate
evoked more emotion-focused coping intentions than the Sorority condition and stimulated more
frequent transformational coping cognitions overall.
Thus these findings suggest that when the motives for the perpetrators’ misconduct or
neglect are clear, intentions to physically or verbally retaliate in some way are greater than when the
perpetrators’ motives are less well articulated. This tendency may be even more apparent in situations
that involve the threat or perpetration of violence. This finding might also tentatively indicate that
interracial discrimination is more commonly anticipated than intra-ethnic prejudice. With respect to
expressions of positively reframing the racially stressful situation, it would seem that learning or
growing from an experience may be dependent on how much of a psychological impact the incident
had for the participants. Hate crimes are less typical than the everyday chronic racial stressors as well
as intra-group discriminatory acts. Thus for perhaps most of the participants, encountering an acute
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%
racially-biased event firsthand was a novel experience for them and thus provided an opportunity to
discover something positive about the situation more so than for events with which they have had
more past experience.
As anticipated though, the individual as well as the intra-ethnic encounters did elicit more
frequent intentions to behaviorally disengage from the situations than did the hate crime condition.
This finding is somewhat consistent with prior work which has found that individual forms of racial
discrimination are often responded to by college-aged African American women with less helpful
means (e.g. avoidance) of coping than are other types of discriminatory acts (Utsey et al., 2000).
Research in this field has indicated that disengaging from problematic events is associated with beliefs
that the cost of disengaging is less than the benefits of not doing so with respect to time and energy
spent (Feagin, 1991).
Although it is possible that disengaging whether mentally or behaviorally is of some benefit
to the person in the short-term (e.g. emotion regulation), it is also likely that doing so may have more
long-term negative consequences psychologically (e.g. lower self-esteem, self-efficacy beliefs and life
satisfaction). However, it is important to note here that the participants in this study intended to
behaviorally disengage to a significantly smaller degree overall when compared to their intentions to
use problem-focused and emotion-focused coping strategies. In general, these findings appear quite
promising as problem-oriented, active coping and transformational coping have traditionally been
negatively associated with indices of negative psychological functioning and positively related to self
esteem and optimism (Carver et al., 1989).
Further building upon past empirical work in the area of coping with racism, the present
findings have shown important relationships between affective and coping responses during simulated
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97
racism encounters. The more problem-focused, action-oriented intentions evoked, the lesser the
likelihood of articulating fear or anxiety (and to a smaller significance anger) during the racially
stressful incidents. Further, although positive emotions were rarely voiced during the racism vignettes,
such verbalizations were significantly associated with positive reinterpretations of the negative
situations.
Additionally, significant links were found between articulated affect and coping during the
ATSS manipulation and post-study self-reports of ruminations and preparedness. Rndings indicated
that the more positive affect expressed during the racism vignettes, the more positively participants
described their post-study ruminations. Lastly, the more participants decided to behaviorally
disengage while experiencing the ATSS vignettes, the greater the probability they expressed feelings
of being ill-prepared to deal with such situations in their post-ATSS reflections. Thus preparation to
encounter racial stress may play an important role in how one copes during such encounters. Taken
altogether, these results provide evidence for the importance of conducting more process-oriented
research in the field of stress and coping.
There were no a priori expectations for comparing the coping intentions evoked during ATSS
to the self-reported coping behaviors assessed via the COPE Inventory. It was possible that since not
all of the COPE scales were utilized for the content analysis of the articulated coping intentions during
this study, that associations may be negligible. Furthermore, recalling memories of past coping
behaviors versus verbalizing coping intentions in an online, immediate fashion may be qualitatively
different phenomena. A final caveat that may diminish the probability of finding significant results
between the COPE scales and the ATSS coping intentions could have been that in the former, there
was no experimental control over the type or intensity of racism event remembered.
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98
However, there were a few noteworthy correlations that generally demonstrated how more
adaptive forms of articulated coping intentions were negatively associated with less psychologically
adaptive methods indicated via self-report and vice versa. These findings provide support for the
convergent validity of the ATSS paradigm employed in this study.
The final portion of this discussion turns to the evidence that suggests individual difference
factors may play a significant part in the psychological experience of managing racially stressful
encounters.
The Relationship of Hardiness and Racial Identity Attitudes to Psychological Functioning
Before. During and After Racist Events
One of the novel aspects to this investigation was to articulate the relationships between
specific attitudes about racial identity according to Cross’ (1971) model of Nigrescence along with the
components of the hardy disposition. Both domains of beliefs have been found in past research to be
differentially related to widely-used measures assessing psychiatric distress and psychological well
being. However, it has never been empirically shown how these factors were related to one another. It
was of great interest to ascertain whether attitudes about racial identity are related to the underlying
cognitive (e.g. stress-appraisal) and behavioral (e.g. active, transformational coping) orientations that
embody the hardy personality style.
As anticipated, racial identity attitudes were shown to be significantly linked to aspects of the
hardy personal philosophy. Earlier stage attitudes were generally negatively associated with hardiness
while later stage attitudes were strongly positively correlated with hardy beliefs. More specifically, as
attitudes reflecting a pro-white/anti-black view increased, beliefs representing the tendency to
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99
approach one’s surroundings in an interested, involved manner decreased. Furthermore, high pre-
encounter racial identity attitude endorsement was markedly coupled with low reports of feelings of
being able to change aspects of the environment as well as assessing stressors as non-threatening
opportunities for growth and learning. Encounter beliefs or ambivalence towards both black and white
mainstream cultures was marginally related to lowered overall hardy attitudes as well as to feelings of
reduced control.
The more participants reported valuing aspects of African American culture but exhibited low
tolerance for European American culture, the lower the likelihood they expressed feelings of being
able to effectively manage facets of their environment. Espousing this pattern of cultural values further
demonstrated significantly reduced endorsements of general hardy personality tendencies. Lastly, as
predicted internalization attitudes were strongly related to overall hardiness and to beliefs about
being actively participating and finding significant meaning to their surroundings. A trend towards
appraising stressors as interesting challenges also emerged for higher racial identity attitudes
defining a comfort with African American identity as well as tolerance for members of other cultural
groups. These findings lend support to conceptualizing specific attitudes about racial identity as
consisting of important stress appraisal, locus of control beliefs as well as active-orientation towards
environmental components.
These results further suggest that exploring the associations between these individual
difference variables may be particularly useful to consider when the stress being examined directly
involves race. The current study is one of the first to attempt to better understand differences in the
psychological functioning before, during and following racially stressful encounters in groups of
women of African American heritage. Conceivably, the strength of the value one places on espousing
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100
an African American identity along with the tolerance one holds for members of other racial, ethnic
and cultural groups might affect how one both emotionally responds to and intends to cope with
instances of racial discrimination. Further it was thought that differences in how much one believes
they are active participants in their environment, how much control they have over effectively
managing aspects of their environment along with the way with which one tends to appraise stressors
in the environment might be significantly linked to differences in the affective experiences and
intended coping behaviors of the study participants when faced with simulated racially stressful
events.
In accordance with predictions, racial identity attitudes and hardiness were found to be
important correlates of pre-ATSS psychological functioning. In support of previous research, later
stage racial identity attitudes and aspects of the hardy personality tended to be positively associated
with positive indices of psychological health (e.g. positive affect, self-esteem). The hardiness
components were also found to be negatively related to an indicator of psychological distress (e.g.
negative affect).
Specific early stage racial identity attitudes were shown to be negatively related to pre-ATSS
positive affect and self-esteem (e.g. pre-encounter). Another was found to be positively associated
with self-reports of positive affect (e.g. encounter) prior to the racism encounters. Immersion attitudes
interestingly were not significantly correlated with either aspects of positive or negative pre-ATSS
psychological functioning. These findings suggest that, although specific racial identity attitudes are
significantly related to hardiness, they are differentially related to self-reported positive and negative
emotional status. Whereas hardiness appears to be an indicator of both beneficial as well as less
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101
adaptive psychological states, racial identity attitudes seem to be more of an indicator of positive
emotional health at least prior to experiencing the racism simulations.
It is of further interest to highlight the significant relationships of attitudes about racial
identity and hardiness to the affective and coping responses elicited during the racial discrimination
simulations. Curiously, no significant relationships were indicated by this analysis between racial
identity attitudes and articulated affect. However, as anticipated positive affect verbalized during the
racism scenarios was strongly related to overall hardiness, commitment and control attitudes. This
latter finding suggests that expressions of positive emotions during predominantly negative racist
experiences may be influenced by beliefs reflecting how engaged one is in their environment and the
degree of control one believes they have in manipulating their environment. Racial identity attitudes
on the other hand may not be as critical to the affective processes while experiencing racially stressful
events.
Further, in support of experimental predictions, pre-encounter attitudes were revealed to be
strongly associated with behavioral disengagement intentions during the ATSS racism vignettes.
Additionally, hardiness and its components of commitment and challenge were shown to significantly
decrease as thoughts of giving up attaining the desired goals within the scenarios increased. It is
possible that endorsing a naVve world view that includes negative beliefs about African American
culture and exclusively positive views about European American mainstream culture would be related
to intents to disengage from stressful situations where perpetrators are both of European heritage as
well as African heritage.
Encountering relational aggression by black women would be consistent with already held
negative expectations about such interpersonal incidents. However feeing discrimination by whites
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102
couid be in significant opposition to the wholly positive attitudes held by individuals high in pre
encounter attitudes and perhaps would be at odds with the expectations for more positive interactions
with European American persons. Further it is conceivable that reporting a greater likelihood of
disengaging from the racism encounters would be associated with lower levels of being active
participators who find meaning within the situations, who appraise the situations as less stressful and
who are determined to persevere towards obtaining the desired objective.
There was also limited evidence which demonstrated that the more frequent emotion-focused
(i.e. emotional venting, seeking social support for emotional reasons, intentions to physically aggress)
coping responses vocalized, the greater the endorsements of being immersed within African American
culture. Strong identification with being black along with negative views about white mainstream
culture was somewhat associated with actual coping intentions in the process of experiencing racist
encounters. Another trend emerged evidencing avoidant cognitions (i.e. thoughts of avoiding or
purposefully ignoring the vignettes' perpetrators) marginally increasing as commitment beliefs
decreased. It is understandable that having a lower tendency to be interested and engaged or
involved in or finding meaning in one’s surroundings would be coupled with thoughts of avoidance.
Furthermore, as the frequency of positive reinterpretations of the negative situations increased,
beliefs assessing the level of interest and meaning one attributes to their environment was also
indicated to increase somewhat.
Lastly, individual differences in racial identity views and hardiness beliefs were significantly
related to measures of post-ATSS psychological outcome. Generally, as expected, relationships found
between these indices prior to the ATSS manipulation were maintained following the simulated racism
experiences. This indicated that typically internalization attitudes and aspects of the hardy personality
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103
orientation were positively associated with indices of positive psychological health while pre-encounter
beliefs were negatively related to similar post-study measures of psychological functioning. However,
an unexpected yet fascinating result was evidenced.
Whereas encounter attitudes were positively associated with pre-ATSS positive affect, in the
immediate aftermath of the imagined racist events, encounter beliefs were found to be strongly
related to post-ATSS negative affect. Encounter racial identity attitudes describe a time of transition in
the development of African American identity. According to Cross (1 9 7 1 /1 9 9 1 ), the encounter
individual exemplifies the person who’s former beliefs about African American and European American
mainstream cultures are shaken considerably by a significant encounter involving race.
It is quite intriguing to speculate that the experimental protocol presented to participants in
this study unexpectedly served as a kind of meaningful “encounter” that may have started the
process in some to question and re-evaluate their prior held attitudes about what it means to be white
or black in the U.S. Thus before the simulated racism events, espousing ambivalence about being
oriented to either culture was not an indicator of negative emotional status. However, following
imagined racial discrimination encounters such identity confusion was marked by significant
increments in negative affective distress.
Lastly it is important to comment on the significant connections found between the individual
difference factors and post-study introspections about feelings of preparedness and interest. Once
again pre-encounter racial identity attitudes were negatively related to thoughts about how prepared
participants felt in feeing the racial discrimination situations. The suggested reasoning behind this
finding follows from the previously described assertion that pre-encounter anti-black/pro-white
cultural views represent the ingenue with limited life experiences.
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104
Thus, endorsing high levels of this type of attitude would understandably be related to feeling ill-
prepared to face an evil world where discrimination may be perpetrated by African Americans
(expected) as well as European Americans (less anticipated).
Components of the hardy disposition were also positively related to post-study preparedness
as expected. This is a particularly important finding in the face of recent research that has linked
psychological preparedness to the cognitive mediation of stress appraisal and psychological health in
torture survivors (Basoglu, Mineka, Paker, Aker, Livanou & Goek, 1997). Based on this finding, and
prior evidence illustrating the role of hardiness in trauma recovery (King et al., 1998), the relationship
between the hardy personality style and preparedness may be important to take into consideration
when intervening with victims of racism in general and perhaps more specifically with victims of
racially-biased hate crimes.
Reported interest for the simulated racism encounters was higher the more strongly
internalization attitudes were endorsed. Thus this suggests that thinking of yourself as an African
American with a more balanced view of other cultures is related to finding meaning and interest in
even the most negative of experiences involving race-related stress. Unexpectedly, hardiness was not
significantly associated with post-study level of interest. It may be that regardless of how elevated
hardy beliefs were, situations involving race had some intrinsic meaning or positive value to the study
participants.
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105
Conclusions, Limitations and Future Areas of Research
The ATSS paradigm in this study has been shown to be a useful experimental vehicle for
capturing the affective experiences and coping intentions of African American and biracial young adult
women while imagining racially stressful situations. This “think aloud” approach has significantly
demonstrated that “not ail racism is alike”. Many African Americans are poised to expect and to cope
with typical, everyday forms of racial discrimination. However, this study has provided evidence that
less common, racially-biased hate crimes may elicit greater negative emotional reactions and more
frequent, specific coping responses than examples of chronic interracial and intra-racial stress.
Further, results from this investigation suggest that individual differences in particular attitudes about
racial identity and hardiness beliefs may be beneficial scientific and clinical tools for understanding
differences in the emotional experiences and coping behaviors evoked by racism and the immediate
psychological aftermath experienced. Despite these unique and promising contributions, it is
important to highlight experimental caveats and to consider areas for future research.
The current study was able to demonstrate important differences in the African American and
biracial participants’ racial identity attitudes. However, for the biracial individuals in this study the
assessment of their African American racial identity developmental attitudes may only be describing
one dimension of their overall conception of racial or ethnic identity. Hence, it will be of interest for
subsequent investigations to develop and validate measures to quantify more specifically attitudes
related to the development of biracial identity formation.
The participants in this study were college-aged females of African American heritage.
Evidence has shown that coping behaviors when thinking about past instances of racial stress may be
influenced by gender (Utsey et al., 2 0 0 0 ). Thus, it will be important to study potential differences in
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106
the articulated affect and coping intentions between monoradal and biracial young adult men and
women of African American heritage when faced with racial discrimination. Additionally, exploring
possible distinctions between genders for the psychological experience following racist encounters
may be important.
Past research has proposed differences in the methods used to cope with racism are based
on additional sample characteristics (Utsey et al., 2000). For instance, students included in this study
were attending a predominantly European American populated university. Thus it will be important for
future studies to examine coping with racism utilizing similar procedures in both African Americans
who attend traditionally black colleges and universities along with community samples who vary in
age, education level and SES from the current sample.
This study attempted to ascertain the immediate psychological effects of simulated racist
encounters. With the significant findings in mind however, it is important to understand the long-term
effects of racism on psychological health and how short-term emotional status is related to risk for the
development of later psychiatric disturbances. Reiatedly, there is also a further need within the clinical
science literature to more clearly articulate the relationships between positive and negative affect in
stress buffering and in the development of mood and affective disorders subsequent to racist
encounters.
The ATSS paradigm itself was demonstrated to be a powerful affective manipulation in this
investigation. However, one of the limitations of the ATSS method is that it relies on the participant to
verbalize their thoughts and feelings. Prior work has shown that the core aspect of persons with
alexithymic symptoms is a lack of awareness for internal emotional states (Dinsmore et al, 1 9% ).
These individuals thus encounter great difficulty in expressing what emotions they are feeling and in
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107
distinguishing among different emotional states (Dinsmore et al., 1 9% ). In light of this interesting
research, future studies involving the ATSS paradigm might be useful in demonstrating this
phenomenon during stressful situations. Further, assessing emotional experience non-verbally (e.g.
through coding changes in facial features) in addition to collecting vocalized thoughts may be
beneficial in later empirical work examining stress and coping.
The racism scenarios in this study were for the most part designed to explicitly reveal the
motives for the perpetrators’ biased behaviors. However, utilizing the combination of racial identity
attitudes and hardiness may be a fruitful investigation of the relationship of these variables to affect
and coping to perceived racial discrimination or prejudice when more situational ambiguity is involved.
It is interesting to consider that espousing more extreme racial identity beliefs (e.g. immersion and
pre-encounter) that reflect lower hardiness attitudes may influence the tendency to misperceive or
misattribute racism to ambiguous situations and in turn could affect how one reacts or responds to
such racial stress. Holding less psychologically adaptive attitudes about racial identity may lead to
using less useful coping strategies (e.g. emotion-focused aggressive escalation or withdrawal and
self-blame) and could possibly have important implications for long-term mental health and
psychological well-being.
Racial identity attitudes and hardiness were not designed to be repeated measures in this
experimental protocol. However, it is possible that since the ATSS paradigm was able to manipulate
participants’ affect and self-esteem, these individual difference measures might also have been
affected. Thus, it would be useful for future scientific endeavors to explore the stability of racial
identity attitudes and hardiness beliefs following stressful life events such as chronic racism
experiences as well as more acute racially-motivated hate crimes. Such investigations could have
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108
important implications for trauma recovery risk, choice of therapist, as well as provide useful fodder
for examining belief system changes in the aftermath of acute stress.
Finally, correlation is not causation. Significant relationships between the variables of interest
were demonstrated. Despite this, it will be critical for future analyses in the area of coping with racism
to formulate and test viable predictive models for how individual differences interact with psychological
functioning before, during and following instances of racial prejudice and discrimination. This
undertaking may more clearly articulate important risk or vulnerability factors as well as possibly
highlight significant protective or buffering variables.
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109
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APPENDIX
Mall Scenario (Individual Racism Condition)
S egm ent#!:
You have an important social event coming up next week but you don’t have an appropriate outfit to
wear. You decide to drive to that new upscale mall in a predominantly white area of town that a friend
told you about the other day. It just opened and they're sure to have your favorite store there.
Segment # 2 :
As you pull into the massive parking structure you notice that there is valet parking available. You’ve
never had your car parked for you at the mall before. Just for fun you decide to valet park your car.
However the white attendants walk toward the cars waiting behind you instead of assisting you first!
Segment # 3 :
You’ve taken care of your car and are now in the mall. You look at your watch and realize that you
only have an hour before you’re scheduled to meet a friend for lunch. Since you are in a bit of a hurry
you decide to ask the person at the information desk to direct you to your favorite store. As you
approach the desk the person briefly glances at you but continues to speak on the phone. When this
person ends their phone call you are told to go look at the mall directory! As you walk away you hear
the same person give directions to a particular store to one of the white customers who had come up
to the desk after you!
Segment # 4 :
After walking around for fifteen minutes you finally find the store you were looking for.
Judging by the displays in the windows you have a feeling that you’ll find the perfect outfit for the
event. When you enter the store, the greeter gives you a surprised look and a small frown before
trying to quickly cover it up with a wide smile.
Segment # 5 :
You start to look around on your own as no one offers to give you assistance in finding your outfit
even though there are only a few other shoppers in the store. As you search you notice how all of the
salespersons are watching you. One is even following you around at a distance!
Segment # 6 :
You have a few outfits in arm that you want to try on and you head to the dressing rooms. You really
like one of the items but you want to try on a different size to see if it will fit better. You call out for a
salesperson to come and get the other size for you to try on. However several minutes go by before
you finally hear someone slowly approach your stall.
Segment # 7 :
You choose an outfit and head to the cashier to pay. One of the cashiers is helping the customer in
front of you. The other two cashiers continue to carry on their animated conversation for several
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
117
minutes more before one of them waves you over to their register. You make your purchase and leave
the store. As you drive away from the parking structure you can’t wait to tell your friend all about your
trip to the mall!
Neo-Nazi Scenario (Collective Racism/Hate Crime Condition)
Segm ent#!:
You and a girlfriend are leaving from the movie theater late one evening. You have just seen a really
good film and are now headed to your car that is parked several blocks away from the theater. You
notice that no other moviegoers are walking in that direction and that the streetlighting is bad.
Segment # 2 :
As you get closer to your car you see a group of white, adolescent males congregated across the
street. You can barely make out that they’re wearing army jackets with the Nazi symbol sewn on the
sleeves. They all turn to look at you and your friend menacingly!
Segment # 3 :
You’re just about to get into the car when your friend gives you a shocked look. You then realize that
something about the car isn’t right. You go around to where she is standing and see “black bitches”
spray painted all along both the front and rear passenger doors!
Segment # 4 :
You hear snickers and laughter coming from the group across the street. As you’re just about to get
into your car and drive away members of the group start yelling “Yeah you black apes, why don’t you
niggers go back to Africa where you came from! We don’t want you here!”.
Segment # 5 :
The taunts continue and get increasingly louder and more vulgar. You and your friend start to drive
away from the area. Suddenly you hear a loud crack against your car’s back windshield! You briefly
glance in the rearview mirror and notice that the group has begun throwing large rocks at your carl
Segment # 6 :
You and your girlfriend arrive safely back at the dorm. After the evening’s most recent events you
decide to call the police to make a report. The white officer you speak to sounds unsympathetic and
not very interested in what you have to say. In fact, after putting you on hold for ten minutes you hear
a dick and then a diattone. You got disconnected from the police station!
Segment # 7 :
You reflect on all that had happened tonight. Tomorrow you decide you will get the car fingerprinted.
Afterwards you will have to get the back windshield replaced and the entire car repainted. What a
night it was for you!
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118
Sorority Scenario (Intra-ethnic Discrimination Condition)
Segment # 1 :
It’s the beginning of a new school year. You have decided to join more dubs this year in order to
broaden your social and cultural experiences at USC. At present you are in line getting ready to sign
up at the table for one of the most popular ail-black sororities on campus. As you wait, you wonder
what being a member of this group will be like.
Segment # 2 :
Although the line is moving slowly, you’re getting closer to the sign-up sheet. You remember what
great things some of your friends had to say about this sorority. They could say nothing bad about its
members, the house or the activities they took part in and organized. As you approach the table you
notice two of the members staring in your direction and looking at you strangely!
Segment # 3 :
Those same two sorority sisters start talking amongst themselves but they glance at you from time to
time during their conversation. You notice that a friend of yours is standing behind them listening and
suddenly a frown appears on her face.
Segment # 4 :
You finally make it up to the front of the line and are about to sign your name down. The president of
the sorority gives you a big smile and tells you when the first informational meeting is. As she is
writing down this information for you, you see those other two members shake their heads and glare
at you with anger!
Segment # 5 :
Before walking away you notice that the president is assisting another person so you ask one of the
other two to give you a brochure about the organization. They tell you that they just ran out although
you saw them give several out just minutes before and you see that there are boxes behind the table
containing more brochures.
Segment # 6 :
They then pull you aside and tell you in a quiet voice that only you can hear that you aren’ t the right
material for their sorority. They suggest that you cross your name off of the list and find another
group to join like one of the white sororities.
Segment # 7 :
Later on that same day you bump into your friend who had overheard the conversation between the
two sorority sisters when you were waiting in line to sign up. She tells you that they were talking about
how you and your attitude wouldn’t fit in well with their group. They gossiped that you weren’t
considered “black enough’’ and that you acted too white because of how you speak and the friends
you hang out with.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
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Best, Jennifer Lauren
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The relationship of hardiness and racial identity attitudes to the articulated thoughts and psychological impact of simulated racism encounters
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Psychology
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