Cultural Diversity and Ethnic Minority Psychology

Linking parenting and informal mentor processes to depressive symptoms among rural African American young adult men.
Little is known about the rates of depressive symptoms among rural African American men during young adulthood or the processes that predict those rates. Many rural African American men in the deep South confront difficult environments that provide minimal resources and diminishing social support to help them embark on beneficial life paths. A model of protective processes hypothesized to deter depression among this population was tested that included autonomy-promoting parenting, informal mentoring, and protective self-regulatory processes. Data from a Respondent-Driven Sampling study with 116 rural African American men age 18–21 were used to test study hypotheses. The unadjusted prevalence of clinically significant depression was 37.9%. As predicted, self-regulatory processes mediated the influence of autonomy-promoting parenting on depressive symptoms. Leaving the family home was associated negatively and educational attainment was associated positively with self-regulatory processes. Support from an informal mentor moderated the link between autonomy-promoting parenting and self-regulatory processes. Findings suggest malleable targets for intervention development with this population. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)
Investigating the racioethnic differences in the link between workplace racioethnic dissimilarity and life satisfaction.
Though researchers have examined racioethnic dissimilarity in the workplace, few have looked at how it relates to life satisfaction, and none have examined prospective racioethnic differences in this linkage. This study used data from a nationally representative interview survey of more than 500 people employed in the United States to test relationships between workplace dissimilarity, prejudice, racioethnicity, and life satisfaction. We found that the dissimilarity–satisfaction linkage is positive for Black and Hispanic Americans and negative for White Americans. Further exploring the latter finding, our results showed that the negative association between dissimilarity and life satisfaction was present only among White Americans higher in prejudice. This study extends the literature on interracioethnic interactions and further illustrates the importance of reducing prejudice in organizational settings. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)
Physical discipline in Chinese American immigrant families: An adaptive culture perspective.
Research on ethnic minority parenting has examined heritage cultural influences and contextual stressors on parenting processes. However, rarely are adaptive cultural processes considered, whereby ethnic minority parents bring their cultural values to bear in adapting to contextual demands in the host society. A survey of 107 Chinese American immigrant parents examined whether use of physical discipline can be predicted by cultural values, contextual stressors, and their interactions. Results indicated that distinct domains of cultural values were related to physical discipline in disparate ways, with some values decreasing risk and others indirectly increasing risk. There was some evidence that cultural values interacted with contextual stress to predict physical discipline. Parent-child acculturation conflicts were only related to physical discipline when parents held strong values about the importance of firm parental control. The findings illustrate how heritage cultural influences and current ecological demands may converge to shape parenting in immigrant families. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)
Validation of the subtle and blatant racism scale for Asian American college students (SABR-A²).
This investigation describes the validation of a measure of perceived racism developed to assess racial experiences of Asian American college students. In three studies across two different regions of the United States, there was strong evidence for the validation of the 8-item Subtle and Blatant Racism Scale for Asian American College Students (SABR-A2). The subtle racism subscale refers to instances of discrimination attributable implicitly to racial bias or stereotype, whereas the blatant racism subscale refers to instances of discrimination attributable explicitly to racial bias or stereotype. The two-subscale structure of the SABR-A2 was supported by exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses and demonstrated discriminant, convergent, and incremental validity, as well as internal reliability and stability over 2 weeks. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)
Depressive symptoms among Latino farmworkers across the agricultural season: Structural and situational influences.
Immigrant Latino farmworkers confront multiple challenges that threaten their mental health. Previous farmworker mental health research has relied primarily on cross-sectional study designs, leaving little opportunity to describe how farmworker mental health changes or to identify factors that may contribute to these changes. This study used prospective data obtained at monthly intervals across one 4-month agricultural season from a large sample of Latino farmworkers in North Carolina (N = 288) to document variation in depressive symptoms across the agricultural season and delineate structural and situational factors associated with mental health trajectories across time. Depressive symptoms generally followed a U-shaped distribution across the season, but there was substantial variation in this pattern. Structural stressors like marital status and situational stressors like the pace of work, crowded living conditions, and concerns about documentation predicted depressive symptoms. The pattern of results suggests that strategies to address mental health problems in this vulnerable population will require coordinated action at the individual and social level. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)
Risk and resilience in low-income African American families: Moderating effects of kinship social support.
The moderating effects of kinship social support on the association of mother–adolescent problematic relations and mothers' report of adolescents' internalizing and externalizing problems were assessed among 204 African American mothers of adolescents who were between the ages of 14 and 18 years. Kinship support was negatively associated with both internalizing and externalizing problems. Mother–adolescent communication problems and mothers' psychological control were positively associated with internalizing problems. Mother–adolescent communication problems were positively related to externalizing problems. The interaction of kinship support and mothers' psychological control on internalizing problems was significant. Probing the interaction revealed that the relation of mothers' psychological control with internalizing problems was less apparent for mothers who had higher compared with lower kinship social support. Also, the relation of the interaction of kinship support and mother–adolescent communication problems with externalizing problems was significant. The association of mother–adolescent communication problems with externalizing problems was less apparent when mothers had higher compared with lower kinship support. The findings are discussed in terms of the need for more information on factors that moderate families' access to social support. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)
Critical incidents and assistance-seeking behaviors of White mental health practitioners: A transtheoretical framework for understanding multicultural counseling competency.
An exploratory qualitative analysis of the critical incidents and assistance-seeking behaviors of White mental health psychologists and professional counselors was performed in an effort to examine a theoretical supposition presented within a Person(al)-as-Profession(al) transtheoretical framework (P-A-P). A concurrent nested strategy was used in which both quantitative and qualitative data were collected simultaneously (Creswell, 2003). In this nested strategy, qualitative data was embedded in a predominant (quantitative) method of analysis from an earlier study (see Middleton et al., 2005). Critical incidents categorized as informal (i.e., personal) experiences were cited more often than those characterized as formal (i.e., professional) experiences as influencing the professional perspectives of White mental health practitioners regarding multicultural diversity. Implications for the counseling and psychology professions are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)
Racism in the electronic age: Role of online forums in expressing racial attitudes about American Indians.
This study investigated racial attitudes about American Indians that are electronically expressed in newspaper online forums by examining the University of North Dakota's Fighting Sioux nickname and logo used for their athletic teams. Using a modified Consensual Qualitative Research (CQR) methodology to analyze over 1,000 online forum comments, the research team generated themes, domains, and core ideas from the data. The core ideas included (a) surprise, (b) power and privilege, (c) trivialization, and (d) denigration. The findings indicated that a critical mass of online forum comments represented ignorance about American Indian culture and even disdain toward American Indians by providing misinformation, perpetuating stereotypes, and expressing overtly racist attitudes toward American Indians. Results of this study were explained through the lens of White power and privilege, as well as through the framework of two-faced racism (Picca & Feagin, 2007). Results provide support to previous findings that indicate the presence of Native-themed mascots, nicknames, or logos can negatively impact the psychological well-being of American Indians. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)
Ethnic group differences in reasons for living and the moderating role of cultural worldview.
Patterns of suicide resilience vary considerably across ethnic groups and are an understudied dimension of suicide science. The purpose of the current study was to examine the relationship between cultural worldview and “reasons for living,” an alternative index for suicide risk in a cross-cultural sample. The Reasons for Living Inventory and Worldview Analysis Scale were administered together with measures of hopelessness and depressive symptoms to 139 African American and 161 European American participants. Cultural worldview functioned as a moderator for African American but not European American participants in predicting reasons for living scores. African Americans who reported a less African-centered worldview also reported fewer reasons for living as hopelessness increased. However, African Americans who reported a more African-centered worldview reported less justification to live as depressive symptoms increased. These findings provide insight to suicide resilience profiles across and within ethnic groups and suggest that assessments of reasons for living and cultural correlates might have important implications for future research and clinical practice. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)
Validation of a Korean MMPI-2 Hwa-Byung scale using a Korean normative sample.
The psychometric properties of a recently developed measure of Hwa-Byung (HB), a Korean culture bound syndrome, using an updated version of the Korean Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory-2, were examined in Korean normative sample. Confirmatory factor analyses indicated that both the first-order four-factor model and the single second-order factor model fit the data well, but the latter may be superior because of its parsimony. The HB scale correlated modestly with age, sex, SES, and problems with family and finance. However, it showed substantial correlations with spouse ratings items that were identified a priori as prospective HB correlates, indicating excellent concurrent validity. The limitations of the study and the need for future studies employing HB patients were discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)
Mental health in immigrants from nontraditional receiving sites.
The mental health of Latinos immigrating to nontraditional settlements may be compromised by limited contextual resources. Stressors and strengths related to anxiety and depression were examined among 150 Mexican adults (45.3% women) in nontraditional areas. Normative stress was associated with anxiety (β = .24) after controlling for depression. Normative and acculturative stressors were associated with depression after controlling for anxiety (βs = .36 and .17, respectively). Links between normative stress and depression were particularly strong for women. Social support provided resilience, being linked with lower depression (β = −.20, p <.01). Acculturative stress and meeting economic expectations were associated with greater depression, but only for recent immigrants. Acculturative and normative stress increased the odds of clinical caseness for comorbidity by 4% and 62%, respectively, whereas social support decreased risk. Contextual implications and the need for resources to aid cultural adaptation are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)
Communalism predicts prenatal affect, stress, and physiology better than ethnicity and socioeconomic status.
The authors examined the relevance of communalism, operationalized as a cultural orientation emphasizing interdependence, to maternal prenatal emotional health and physiology and distinguished its effects from those of ethnicity and childhood and adult socioeconomic status (SES). African American and European American women (N = 297) were recruited early in pregnancy and followed through 32 weeks gestation using interviews and medical chart review. Overall, African American women and women of lower socioeconomic backgrounds had higher levels of negative affect, stress, and blood pressure, but these ethnic and socioeconomic disparities were not observed among women higher in communalism. Hierarchical multivariate regression analyses showed that communalism was a more robust predictor of prenatal emotional health than ethnicity, childhood SES, and adult SES. Communalism also interacted with ethnicity and SES, resulting in lower blood pressure during pregnancy for African American women and women who experienced socioeconomic disadvantage over the life course. The effects of communalism on prenatal affect, stress, and physiology were not explained by depressive symptoms at study entry, perceived availability of social support, self-esteem, optimism, mastery, nor pregnancy-specific factors, including whether the pregnancy was planned, whether the pregnancy was desired after conception, or how frequently the woman felt happy to be pregnant. This suggests that a communal cultural orientation benefits maternal prenatal emotional health and physiology over and above its links to better understood personal and social resources in addition to economic resources. Implications of culture as a determinant of maternal prenatal health and well-being and an important lens for examining ethnic and socioeconomic inequalities in health are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)
The family as mediator of the impact of parent–youth acculturation/enculturation and inner-city stressors on Mexican American youth substance use.
Youth substance use was investigated in a sample of Mexican-origin mothers and youth (93 dyads totaling 186 individuals). We tested the hypotheses that both acculturation and inner-city risk factors impact substance use largely because they undermine family relationships. Mothers and youth completed self-report measures of acculturation and enculturation. Youth completed questionnaires of family relationships, inner-city risk factors, and substance use. Youth substance use was measured with an index of lifetime alcohol, tobacco, and marijuana use based on the Youth Risk Behavior Survey. As predicted, mother–youth (dyadic) acculturation/enculturation, as well as exposure to violence, were significantly associated with substance use. Family cohesion mediated the impact of violence exposure on substance use. However, both cohesion and violence had unique and significant associations with substance use. Furthermore, family relationships did not mediate the link between substance use and mother–youth acculturation or mother–youth enculturation. Results underscore the need to develop and test hypotheses that link Latino youth substance use with both acculturation and inner-city contexts that do not solely rely on family relationships as mediators. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)
Cultural differences in daily support experiences.
Previous research has suggested that Asian Americans (AAs) are less likely to mobilize social support, and find support to be less helpful, when compared with European Americans (EAs). In a 10-day daily diary study of AA and EA college students, we hypothesized that AAs would activate support less frequently than EAs for both stressful and positive events, a cultural difference that would be mediated by group harmony values. We also predicted that AAs would find support to be less helpful, and we explored differences in the sources of support used. Results confirmed that cultural differences in support use were partially mediated by the value of maintaining group harmony through emotional restraint. AAs also perceived received support to be less helpful and more frequently used discretionary rather than kinship support sources. Findings suggest that naturalistic support experiences differ markedly for these groups, with implications for help-seeking behavior and mental health services. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)
Expanding the discourse on urban youth of color.
The authors in this study used regression analyses to examine the effects of urban hassles, ethnic identity, and neighborhood satisfaction on perceptions of school and life satisfaction among a diverse group of 158 early adolescents. The question of whether positive ethnic identity and neighborhood satisfaction could moderate the impact of urban hassles on school and life satisfaction was examined. Results indicated that urban hassles and ethnic identity were both uniquely predictive of school satisfaction. However, the relationship between urban hassles and school satisfaction was not in the predicted direction. Neighborhood satisfaction was a significant predictor of both school and overall life satisfaction. Contrary to the hypotheses, neither ethnic identity nor neighborhood satisfaction moderated the effect of urban hassles on school and life satisfaction. These findings underscore the importance of conducting survey research to directly assess the perceptions of urban youth of color, which will ultimately provide a more accurate appraisal of the specific factors that influence their well-being. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)
Subgroup respect, social engagement, and well-being: A field study of an ethnically diverse high school.
Recent research points toward the utility of the pluralist (multicultural) model as a viable alternative to the traditional assimilation model of cultural integration. In this study, we extend this work by evaluating when and to what extent feelings that members of a common group respect and value one's ethnic group membership (subgroup respect) shape social engagement and well-being. We do so in the context of a survey of students at a diverse, public high school. Subgroup respect was linked to more positive evaluations of both school authorities and students from ethnic outgroups as well as to lower levels of school disengagement. Consistent with past research, these relationships held only among ethnic minority groups (African Americans, Asian Americans, and Latinos) but not among Whites. Findings about the relationship between subgroup respect and indicators of well-being were more mixed, with the relationship most evident among Asians Americans and Latinos and especially on indicators of physical health. Implications for understanding the consequences of pluralism are discussed in light of the observed ethnic group differences. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)
Hopelessness among White- and Indian-identified American Indian adolescents.
Despite a number of investigations into the protective effects of ethnic and cultural identity among a variety of diverse populations, there have been relatively few studies that examine the relationship between this identity and American Indian mental health. This brief report investigates the associations between ethnic/cultural identification and feelings of hopelessness among American Indian adolescents. Data were drawn from middle-school respondents on a reservation community at 2 time points 14 months apart. Although White cultural identification was significantly and negatively correlated with hopelessness at 14 months, Indian cultural identification was not associated with hopelessness at either time point. These results are discussed with attention to the developmental stage of our respondents and to the possibility of social dynamics relevant to this particular reservation community. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)
Which racial groups are associated with diversity?
This article examines which racial groups are associated with the concept of diversity. Results indicate that regardless of perceivers' racial in-group, minorities (Asians, Blacks, and Latinos) tend to be more associated with diversity than do Whites. In addition, members of minority racial groups were found to associate their respective in-groups more strongly with the concept of diversity relative to minority out-groups. Consequences for addressing issues of racial equity and representation through the pursuit of diversity are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)
Review of Racism in the United States: Implications for the helping professions.
Reviews the book, Racism in the United States: Implications for the helping professions by Joshua Miller and Ann Marie Garran (2008). This book aims to provide a comprehensive exploration of racism, how racism affects the helping professions as a whole, and how racism affects individual practitioners in their professional work. There are few books available that focus solely on racism that are directed toward mental health professionals. It also serves as a strong resource for mental health professionals exploring racism in several mental health settings. The authors do a thorough job of exploring racism in multiple contexts. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)
Review of Cross cultural awareness and social justice in counseling.
Reviews the book, Cross cultural awareness and social justice in counseling by Cyrus Marcellus Ellis and Jon Carlson (see record 2007-18821-000). This book helps those in counseling professions go beyond their awareness and knowledge of cross-cultural psychology. The contributors of the chapters encourage readers to consider practical steps to working with diverse communities. Many of the chapters begin with a foundational understanding of a specific population and end with action-oriented suggestions of how to approach working with the group in a therapeutic environment, as well as community context. One knows as soon as they read the first few chapters that one of the main objectives is to consider the impact beyond the therapeutic counseling relationship. It offers counselors practical recommendations to reduce feeling overwhelmed when working with those experiencing more systemic problems (e.g., lack of resources). This reading is highly recommended for those who are open to learning about how a cross-cultural counselor can also be a social justice advocate. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)
Review of Studying ethnic minority and economically disadvantaged populations: Methodological challenges and best practices.
Reviews the book, Studying ethnic minority and economically disadvantaged populations: Methodological challenges and best practices by George P. Knight, Mark W. Roosa, and Adriana J. Umaña-Taylor (see record 2009-08147-000). The authors take a very systematic and comprehensive look at how to do appropriate and effective research with people in the United States who are ethnic minorities or economically disadvantaged. The authors bring substantial research experience and expertise, and they add to it an impressive review of the literature, enabling them to provide recommendations for best practices. The result is an excellent volume that is appropriate for graduate-level research training and that could serve as a valuable text for a research design or research methods course. But in addition, this book will be a useful desk-reference for both junior and experienced researchers. It is well organized, generally easy-to-read, and it contains numerous diverse examples that bring to life the issues and recommendations that are presented (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)

Cultural Diversity and Ethnic Minority Psychology - Vol 16, Iss 3