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. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2023 Mar 24.
Published in final edited form as: Clin Psychol Sci. 2021 Feb 12;9(2):183–196. doi: 10.1177/2167702620957318

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

Yara Mekawi 1, Courtland S Hyatt 2, Jessica Maples-Keller 1, Sierra Carter 3, Vasiliki Michopoulos 1, Abigail Powers 1
PMCID: PMC10038392  NIHMSID: NIHMS1621996  PMID: 36968342

Abstract

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

Keywords: Racial discrimination, personality, posttraumatic stress, depression, anxiety

Racial discrimination, defined as the subjective experience of discriminatory behavior on the basis of one’s race, remains a public health problem for African Americans (Harrell, Hall, & Taliaferro, 2003). The overwhelming majority of African Americans experience racial discrimination during their lifetime with 80–98% report experiencing discrimination in the last year (Gibbons et al., 2004; Seaton et al., 2008). Experiencing racial discrimination is associated with negative physical health outcomes, including worse cardiovascular health (Lewis et al., 2006), poorer sleep (Bethea et al., 2020) and accelerated aging (Carter et al., 2019) as well as mental health outcomes, including more severe symptoms of depression (Russell et al., 2018), anxiety (Soto et al., 2011), and posttraumatic stress (Sibrava et al., 2019). These associations have been found in relation to both racial microaggressions (Torres-Harding et al., 2020) as well as overt racial discrimination (Paradies et al., 2015) and across the lifespan, including in children (Priest et al., 2013), adolescents (Benner et al., 2018), and adults (Pieterse et al., 2012). Although the majority of work has used cross-sectional designs, a number of studies report empirical support for longitudinal associations between racial discrimination and mental health outcomes (e.g., Gibbons et al., 2018; Kwate & Goodman, 2015; Walker et al., 2017). Nevertheless, the validity and utility of this large body of work has come into question in recent years (Lilienfeld, 2017), in part due to racial discrimination researchers’ alleged neglect of important third variables that may account for the relationship between experiences of racial discrimination and negative outcomes. One such variable, some scholars argue, is personality, and in particular, negative emotionality (Lilienfeld, 2017).

Also referred to as negative affectivity or neuroticism, negative emotionality is a broad personality domain characterized by vulnerability to negative emotional states. This personality domain demonstrates consistent relations with mental and physical health disorders, healthcare utilization, and quality of life (Lahey, 2009). Empirical evidence suggests the importance of negative affectivity or neuroticism to psychopathology, as it is strongly related to internalizing psychopathology (e.g., Brandes & Tackett, 2019; Kotov et al., 2010). Because interpersonal perception is frequently “as much a function of the perceiver as of the perceived” (p. 152), Lilienfeld (2017) argues that “negative emotionality and other personality traits” may contaminate the literature on life events, such as racial discrimination or microaggressions, and adverse psychological outcomes. Notwithstanding that the presence of neuroticism does not invalidate experiences of racial discrimination, examining the degree to which it accounts for the association between racial discrimination and psychological outcomes may inform theory about how racial discrimination may be associated with mental health symptoms. Further, although this argument has been raised mostly in the context of racial microaggressions, implicating the “subjective” aspect of assessing discriminatory events as problematic is relevant to any assessment of racial discrimination that does not exclusively include assessments of experiencing unambiguously prejudiced incidents (e.g., frequency of being called the “n” word). Thus, the argument for the “contaminating” role of neuroticism is relevant to much of the literature on racial discrimination, which often asks individuals to report the frequency with which they have experienced unfair treatment on the basis of their race (as defined by the participant). Research support for this argument, however, is mixed.

In support of the idea that racial discrimination is associated with negative emotionality, Pearson et al. (2014) found that neuroticism was associated with more negative psychological responses to a racist incident (e.g., intrusive thoughts, lack of forgiveness) in a large sample of African American students. Similarly, McClendon et al. (2019) recently found that racial discrimination may be indirectly associated with mental health outcomes through elevated neuroticism. However, research examining whether neuroticism accounts for associations between racial discrimination and mental health outcomes has received relatively little empirical support. For example, Ong and colleagues (2013) found that daily microaggressions predicted increases in somatic complains above and beyond neuroticism scores in a sample of Asian Americans. Similarly, Williams et al. (2018) found that racial discrimination accounted for significant variance in mental health outcomes even when accounting for negative emotionality in a college sample of African Americans. Further, longitudinal studies do not support the assertion that ongoing internalizing psychopathology serves as a “risk” factor for perceiving more racial discrimination. For example, several studies (e.g., Gibbons et al., 2018; Watson- Singleton et al., 2020) have found that although perceived racial discrimination predicts future depression among African Americans, depression does not predict future perceptions of racial discrimination. Even stronger evidence can be found in Ong and Burrow’s (2018) daily-diary study, which found that reactivity in response to racial discrimination was associated with later depressive symptoms even when accounting for individuals’ expectations of being racially discriminated against (e.g., stigma consciousness) among African American graduate and post- graduate students. Thus, at least among university samples, negative emotionality does not appear to account for associations between racial discrimination and mental health. Whether this pattern replicates in African American community samples, particularly those exposed to significant amounts of both race- and non-race related stressors (e.g., trauma exposure) and who experience higher than average rates of adverse stress-related disorders is unknown.

Although the primary personality trait of interest is negative affectivity, existing models of personality are hierarchical, with broad or higher order personality domains being comprised of lower level facet traits. As established, negative affectivity is a highly relevant domain for understanding and predicting internalizing psychopathology. In addition to higher order domains, facet level traits have much to offer investigations of the link between traits and outcomes. Facet level traits have been shown to have distinct patterns of external correlates (Costa & McCrae, 1992) and demonstrate unique predictive power (Reynolds & Clark, 2001; Schimmack et al., 2016). For instance, Five Factor Model personality facets have been shown to account for greater proportion of variance in 11 of 13 personality disorders compared to the composite domain scores (Reynolds & Clark, 2001). Thus, in order to conduct a more stringent investigation of these associations as they pertain to racial discrimination, it is important for researchers to also investigate a variety of facet-level traits relevant to the argument that individual differences may better account for mental health outcomes compared to subjective assessments of racial discrimination (e.g., traits related to hostile attribution bias, likelihood of misperceiving others).

The present study investigates the association between negative affectivity and racial discrimination with three relevant mental health outcomes using a robust measure of negative affectivity. Specifically, this study was designed to speak to the notion that established links between instances of racial discrimination and negative mental health outcomes might be due, at least in part, to personality traits of the perceiver, such as negative affectivity. Thus, the aim of the study is to examine the degree to which experiences of racial discrimination in African Americans are related to negative mental health outcomes while controlling for the influence of personality traits. In addition to the broad personality domain of negative affectivity, we also tested conceptually relevant facet-level traits to address the current research question. Given that negative emotionality related traits have been proposed as specifically relevant to subjective perceptions of discrimination (Lilienfeld, 2017), negative temperament facet was included. Additionally, given the argument that personality traits may confound subjective perceptions of discrimination, we included facets that could potentially impact interpretation of events: mistrust and eccentric perceptions. We hypothesized that racial discrimination would positively predict symptoms of posttraumatic stress, anxiety, and depression, even with negative affectivity and its relevant facets included in the model.

Method

Procedure

The current study focuses on a secondary analysis of data collected from January 2006 through August 2008 as part of a larger NIH funded study on the risk factors for the development of PTSD in a low socioeconomic, urban population. Participants were recruited from waiting rooms in the gynecology and primary care medical clinics at a publicly-funded hospital and the emergency department waiting room of a pediatric, non-profit hospital, in Atlanta, Georgia. We did not narrow recruitment to specific criteria, but approached any individual in the waiting room. To be eligible for participation, subjects had to be at least 18 years old and able to give informed consent. After signing the informed consent approved by the university and hospital ethics review boards, an interview was administered with questionnaires regarding trauma history and psychological variables. Trained research assistants administered this interview (approximately 45–75 min). More comprehensive assessments of psychological functioning were conducted in a separate associated study drawn from the pool of participants who completed the initial assessment (see Gillespie et al., 2009 for additional details regarding study procedures).

Participants

The large participant sample was narrowed down based on self-reported race (i.e., African American) and whether the data were collected during the time period when the constructs of interest (e.g., personality) were assessed. The current sample included 419 African American adults (56.1% women) who ranged from 18 to 78 years old (M = 43.96, SD = 13.08). In terms of education, 22.2% reported obtaining less than a high school education, 43.2% reported completing high school or obtaining a GED, and 33.9% reported completing additional education beyond high school. In terms of income, 41.1% reported an income of less than $500/month, 25.3% reported an income of less than $999/month, and 30.5% reported an income of $1000 or more per month. On average, participants reported experiencing 2.89 different types of racial discrimination (e.g., at school, work) with 76.4% reporting they experienced at least one type of discrimination in their lifetime. On average, participants reported experiencing 4.83 different types of traumatic events (e.g., sexual assault, natural disaster, witnessing violence), with 91.7% of the sample reporting an experience of at least one type of trauma exposure. In terms of previous treatment for various psychological disorders, 27.9% endorsed previous treatment for depression and 7.2% for PTSD.

Measures

Demographic information, including sex, age, race and ethnicity, household monthly income was assessed using an internally-developed form.

Experiences of Discrimination (EOD; Krieger, Smith, Naishadham, Hartman, & Barbeau, 2005).

The EOD is a psychometrically validated measure of experiences of discrimination originally developed in the context of a large, public health study that utilized a racially diverse community sample of adults. Participants were first asked, “Have you ever experienced discrimination, been prevented from doing something, or been hassled or made to feel inferior in any of the following situations because of your race, ethnicity, or color?” and then instructed to respond regarding nine different situations (e.g., school, work) using a scale of 0 (never) to 3 (four or more times). Scores were summed to create a total score (α = .84).

Modified Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Symptom Scale (mPSS; Coffey, Dansky, Falsetti, Saladin, & Brady, 1998).

The mPSS is a reliable and well-validated 17-item measure used to assess PTSD symptoms based on DSM–IV–TR (American Psychiatric Association, 2000) criteria. Participants indicated the degree to which they experienced symptoms such as “persistently been making efforts to avoid thoughts or feelings associated” regarding traumatic experiences on a scale of 0 (not at all) to 3 (five or more times a week). Scores were summed to create a total score (α = .92).

Brief Symptom Inventory (BSI; Derogatis, 1993).

The BSI is a psychometrically validated measure of nine dimensions of psychological distress (Loutsiou-Ladd, Panayiotou, & Kokkinos, 2008). In the current study, we used the anxiety subscale, which is comprised of six items assessing the frequency with which participants have experienced symptoms such as “feeling tense or keyed up” and “nervousness or shakiness inside” on a scale of 0 (not at all) to 4 (extremely). The scores were summed to create a total score of anxiety symptoms (α = .84).

Beck Depression Inventory-II (BDI-II; Beck, Steer, & Brown, 1996).

The BDI-II is a reliable and well-validated 21-item measure used to assess depressive symptoms (Arnau, Meagher, Norris, & Bramson, 2001). For each item, participants indicated which of four statements best described the way they had been feeling over the past two weeks. Each statement had a corresponding score, ranging from 0 (e.g., “I do not feel sad”) to 3 (e.g., “I am so sad or unhappy that I can’t stand it”). The scores were summed to create a total depressive symptom severity score (α = .93).

Schedule for Nonadaptive and Adaptive Personality (SNAP; Clark, 1993).

The SNAP is a factor-analytically derived self-report questionnaire with 375 true-false items. Scores can be obtained on 34 Scales composed by summing items: 12 trait scales, 3 higher-order scales, 6 validity scales, and 13 personality disorder scales. In this study, we used the higher-order negative affectivity scale, which is a composite of the negative temperament, mistrust, eccentric perceptions, aggression, self-harm, manipulativeness, and dependency trait scales (α = .96). We also used three trait scales: negative temperament (e.g., “Small annoyances often irritate me,” 28 items, α = .92), mistrust (e.g., “It’s best not to let other people get to know you too well,” 19 items, α = .84), and eccentric perceptions (e.g., “At times, I somehow feel the presence of someone who is not really there,” 15 items, α = .82). Reliability and validity have been studied extensively and proven adequate for the majority of the scales (Melley, Oltmanns, & Turkheimer, 2002; Reynolds & Clark, 2001).

Data Analysis

All data analyses were conducted using SPSS 26.0 software package (IBM Corp, 2019). First, we examined zero-order correlations among our main study variables and converted them to z-scores to compare the magnitude of the effects (Diedenhofen & Musch, 2015; Hittner, May, & Silver, 2003). Second, we ran three sets of five hierarchical regression models with different combinations of predictors and outcomes based on our study hypotheses, resulting in a total of 15 models. To correct for multiple testing across our 15 models based on the Bonferroni approach, we used an α cut off of .0033 to determine statistical significance. In the first four models, each respective personality predictor (negative affectivity, negative temperament, mistrust, and eccentric perceptions) was entered in the first block and racial discrimination was entered in the second block in order to examine the incremental variance predicted by discrimination. In order to conduct the most rigorous test of our hypothesis that discrimination is related to the mental health outcomes above and beyond personality, in the fifth model we entered all three lower-order facets in the first block, and racial discrimination was entered in the second block. This was completed for each of our three outcomes (posttraumatic stress, depression, and anxiety symptoms).

Results

Correlations

In terms of zero-order correlations, we found that racial discrimination was associated with mental health outcomes in expected ways (see Table 1), with positive and statistically significant associations found for posttraumatic stress (r = .26), depression (r = .19), and anxiety (r = .20) symptoms. Racial discrimination evidenced small but statistically significant associations with negative affectivity (r = .12), mistrust (r = .11) and eccentric perceptions (r = .10), but not with negative temperament (r = .08, p = ns).

Table 1.

Descriptive statistics and correlations among study variables

M SD Range α 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
1. Racial Discrimination 6.38 6.24 0–27 .84 -
2. Posttraumatic Stress Symptoms 12.14 12.20 0–51 .92 .26* -
3. Depression Symptoms 13.69 12.10 0–63 .93 .19* .68* -
4. Anxiety Symptoms 4.38 4.92 0–24 .85 .20* .61* .53* -
5. Negative Affectivity 49.42 23.99 0–136 .96 .12* .40* .41* .50* -
6. Negative Temperament 13.27 7.40 0–28 .92 .08 .43* .46* .55* .84* -
7. Mistrust 10.58 4.67 0–19 .84 .11* .32* .30* .40* .71* .64*
8. Eccentric Perceptions 6.71 3.87 0–15 .82 .10* .39* .29* .42* .74* .60* .62*
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Note.

*

p < .05

In terms of differences in the magnitude of correlations, the association between racial discrimination and negative affectivity was relatively smaller than the associations between racial discrimination and posttraumatic stress (z = −2.67, p < .01), but not depression (z = −1.34, p = .18) or anxiety (z = −1.66, p = .10) symptoms. Similarly, the association between racial discrimination and mistrust was relatively smaller than the associations between racial discrimination and posttraumatic stress (z = −2.69, p < .01), but not with symptoms of depression (z = −1.40, p = .16) or anxiety (z = −1.70, p = .10). The association between racial discrimination and eccentric perceptions was relatively smaller than the associations between racial discrimination and posttraumatic stress (z = −3.02, p < .01), but not depression (z = −1.56, p = .12) or anxiety (z = −1.92, p = .05). Diverging from this pattern, the (nonsignificant) association between racial discrimination and negative temperament was relatively smaller than the associations between racial discrimination and posttraumatic stress (z = −3.51, p < .01), depression (z = −2.19, p = .03), and anxiety (z = −2.62, p = .01) symptoms.

Posttraumatic Stress Symptoms

The results of Models 1–4 indicated that racial discrimination accounted for statistically significant variance in posttraumatic stress symptoms even with negative affectivity, negative temperament, mistrust, and eccentric perceptions, respectively, in each model (see Table 2). The results of Model 5 indicated that although the first block (with all three personality traits) accounted for significant variance in symptoms (R2 = .21, FΔ = 32.77, p < .001), only negative temperament (β = .32, p < .001) and eccentric perceptions (β = .19, p = .003) were statistically significant predictors, whereas mistrust was not (β = .01, p = .901). Most importantly, adding racial discrimination in the second block accounted for additional variance (R2 = .21, R2Δ = .04, FΔ = 21.21, p < .001) with racial discrimination showing an expected positive association with posttraumatic stress symptoms (β = .21, p < .001).

Table 2.

Hierarchical regression models predicting posttraumatic stress symptoms

R 2 R2Δ FΔ p Predictor B SE 95%CI β p
Model 1 Step 1 .16 .16 72.21 <.001 Negative Affectivity .20 .02 [.16, .25] .40 <.001
Step 2 .20 .04 20.02 <.001 Negative Affectivity .19 .02 [.14, .23] .37 <.001
Racial Discrimination .40 .09 [.22, .57] .21 <.001
Model 2 Step 1 .18 .18 86.50 <.001 Negative Temperament .71 .08 [.56, .86] .43 <.001
Step 2 .23 .05 22.61 <.001 Negative Temperament .68 .08 [.53, .83] .41 <.001
Racial Discrimination .42 .09 [.24, .59] .22 <.001
Model 3 Step 1 .10 .10 44.00 <.001 Mistrust .84 .13 [.59, 1.09] .32 <.001
Step 2 .15 .05 21.14 <.001 Mistrust .76 .12 [.52, 1.00] .29 <.001
Racial Discrimination .42 .09 [.24, .60] .22 <.001
Model 4 Step 1 .15 .15 68.20 <.001 Eccentric Perceptions 1.23 .15 [.94, 1.52] .39 <.001
Step 2 .20 .05 21.88 <.001 Eccentric Perceptions 1.15 .15 [.87, 1.44] .36 <.001
Racial Discrimination .42 .09 [.24, .59] .22 <.001
Model 5 Step 1 .21 .21 32.77 <.001 Negative Temperament .53 .11 [.32, .74] .32 <.001
Mistrust −.02 .17 [−.35, .31] −.01 .901
Eccentric Perceptions .60 .20 [.20, .99] .19 .003
Step 2 .25 .04 21.21 <.001 Negative Temperament .54 .10 [.33, .74] .33 <.001
Mistrust −.08 .17 [−.41, .25] −.03 .627
Eccentric Perceptions .56 .19 [.18, .94] .18 .004
Racial Discrimination .40 .09 [.23, .57] .21 <.001
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Depression Symptoms

Parallel to the results from the first set of models predicting posttraumatic stress symptoms, Models 1–4 indicated that racial discrimination accounted for statistically significant variance in depressive symptoms even with negative affectivity, negative temperament, mistrust, and eccentric perceptions, respectively, in each model (see Table 3). The results of Model 5 indicated that although the first block (with all three personality traits) accounted for significant variance in symptoms (R2 = .22, FΔ = 34.34, p < .001), only negative temperament (β = .29, p < .001) was a significant predictor, while mistrust (β = .01, p = .864) and eccentric perceptions (β = .19, p = .943) were not. Most importantly, adding racial discrimination in the second block accounted for a small but statistically significant amount of additional variance (R2 = .23, R2Δ = .02, FΔ = 9.20, p = .003) with racial discrimination showing the expected positive association with depression symptoms (β = .14, p = .003).

Table 3.

Hierarchical regression models predicting depression symptoms

R 2 R2Δ FΔ p Predictor B SE 95%CI β p
Model 1 Step 1 .17 .17 76.36 <.001 Negative Affectivity .20 .02 [.16, .25] .41 <.001
Step 2 .18 .02 8.30 <.001 Negative Affectivity .19 .02 [.15, .24] .39 <.001
Racial Discrimination .26 .09 [.08, .43] .13 .004
Model 2 Step 1 .22 .22 103.50 <.001 Negative Temperament .76 .08 [.61, .91] .46 <.001
Step 2 .23 .02 9.29 .002 Negative Temperament .74 .07 [.59, .89] .45 <.001
Racial Discrimination .26 .09 [.09, .43] .14 .002
Model 3 Step 1 .09 .09 37.83 <.001 Mistrust .77 .13 [.53, 1.02] .30 <.001
Step 2 .11 .02 9.64 .002 Mistrust .72 .13 [.48, 97] .28 <.001
Racial Discrimination .29 .09 [.11, .47] .15 .002
Model 4 Step 1 .09 .09 35.88 <.001 Eccentric Perceptions .91 .15 [.61, 1.211] .29 <.001
Step 2 .11 .02 10.23 .001 Eccentric Perceptions .85 .15 [.56, 1.15] .27 <.001
Racial Discrimination .30 .09 [.11, .48] .16 .001
Model 5 Step 1 .22 .22 34.34 <.001 Negative Temperament .75 .10 [.54, .95] .45 <.001
Mistrust .03 .17 [−.30, .35] .01 .864
Eccentric Perceptions .01 .20 [−.37, .40] .00 .943
Step 2 .23 .02 9.20 .003 Negative Temperament .75 .10 [.54, .95] .45 <.001
Mistrust −.01 .16 [−.33, .31] .00 .965
Eccentric Perceptions −.01 .19 [−.39, .37] .00 .967
Racial Discrimination .26 .09 [.09, .44] .14 .003
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Anxiety Symptoms

Consistent with the previous set of results, the first four models also suggested that racial discrimination accounted for statistically significant variance in anxiety symptoms even with negative affectivity, negative temperament, mistrust, and eccentric perceptions, respectively, in each model (see Table 4). The results for the fifth model indicated that although the first block accounted for significant variance in symptoms (R2 = .32, FΔ = 62.36, p < .001), only negative temperament (β = .46, p < .001) and eccentric perceptions (β = .13, p = .023) were significant predictors, whereas mistrust was not (β = .02, p = .758). Adding racial discrimination in the second block accounted for additional variance (R2 = .34, R2Δ = .02, FΔ = 13.02, p < .001) with racial discrimination predicting more severe anxiety symptoms (β = .15, p < .001).

Table 4.

Hierarchical regression models predicting anxiety symptoms

R 2 R2Δ FΔ p Predictor B SE 95%CI β p
Model 1 Step 1 .25 .25 136.55 <.001 Negative Affectivity .10 .01 [.09, .12] .50 <.001
Step 2 .27 .02 10.35 <.001 Negative Affectivity .10 .01 [.08, .12] .48 <.001
Racial Discrimination .11 .03 [.04, .17] .14 .001
Model 2 Step 1 .30 .30 178.20 <.001 Negative Temperament .37 .03 [.31, .42] .55 <.001
Step 2 .33 .02 14.03 <.001 Negative Temperament .36 .03 [.31, .41] .54 <.001
Racial Discrimination .12 .03 [.06, .18] .15 <.001
Model 3 Step 1 .16 .16 77.87 <.001 Mistrust .42 .05 [.33, .51] .40 <.001
Step 2 .18 .02 11.82 .001 Mistrust .40 .05 [.31, .49] .38 <.001
Racial Discrimination .12 .04 [.05, .19] .15 .001
Model 4 Step 1 .18 .18 90.69 <.001 Eccentric Perceptions .54 .06 [.43, .65] .42 <.001
Step 2 .20 .02 12.48 <.001 Eccentric Perceptions .52 .06 [.41, .63] .41 <.001
Racial Discrimination .12 .04 [.05, .19] .16 <.001
Model 5 Step 1 .32 .32 62.36 <.001 Negative Temperament .31 .04 [.24, .38] .46 <.001
Mistrust .02 .06 [−.10, .14] .02 .758
Eccentric Perceptions .16 .07 [.02, .30] .13 .023
Step 2 .34 .02 13.02 <.001 Negative Temperament .31 .04 [.24, .38] .46 <.001
Mistrust .01 .06 [−.11, .12] .01 .916
Eccentric Perceptions .16 .07 [.02, .29] .12 .028
Racial Discrimination .12 .03 [.05, .18] .15 <.001
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Discussion

In the current study, we investigated the relative contributions of the negative affectivity personality domain and several relevant facets (i.e., negative temperament, mistrust, eccentric perceptions) and experiences of racial discrimination in predicting mental health outcomes (i.e., symptoms of depression, anxiety, and posttraumatic stress) in a community sample of African Americans. Across each outcome assessed, experiences of racial discrimination accounted for incremental variance above and beyond these personality traits, even in the most rigorous tests when racial discrimination was entered as a simultaneous predictor alongside all three conceptually relevant personality facets. These results are relevant to addressing a recent criticism of literature on racial discrimination and mental health (i.e., Lilienfeld, 2017), specifically that personality traits like negative affectivity might account for the relationship between racial microaggressions and mental health outcomes. Although there are several important limitations that we note subsequently, we believe the current findings are inconsistent with this criticism and we believe there are several important interpretations of the current results that may advance the discourse surrounding these issues.

Notably, the effect sizes for the relations between racial discrimination and personality traits we found were positive, but uniformly small (i.e., rs ~ .10), which is consistent with the small regression coefficients observed. Although the cross-sectional nature of these data precludes conclusions about directionality, there are a few possibilities to consider: 1) having a relatively high standing on trait negative affectivity (or negative temperament, mistrust, eccentric perceptions) leads to elevated rates of perceived racial discrimination, 2) perceiving racial discrimination leads to higher relative standing on trait negative affectivity, or 3) a more complex set of interrelations. One can leave the question of directionality of this effect open while still making cautious interpretations about what the magnitude of these effects might suggest in either context. Given our main research question, we first address the possible interpretation that relatively higher standing on trait negative affectivity confers greater likelihood of perceiving racial discrimination.

Using Funder and Ozer (2019) “baseball at bat” metaphor to interpret effect sizes, in which each psychological situation can be considered as “at bat,” with effect sizes interpreted as the likelihood of a certain outcome across many instances (i.e. all relevant “at bats”), our question can be reformulated as: out of all of an individual’s interpersonal experiences that could be perceived as racially discriminatory, how many more of these events will be perceived as discriminatory by an individual who has relatively high standing on negative affectivity vs. someone who has relatively low standing on negative affectivity? Given the small effect sizes observed, the answer to this question in real-world terms is “not many.” Funder and Ozer (2019) use a binomial effect size display to illustrate that an effect size of r = .10 corresponds to approximately ~55%/45% odds of a given binary outcome, compared to the 50%/50% odds that characterize a null effect of r = .00. In the current context, this suggests that although these relevant personality traits are related to perceiving events as racially discriminatory slightly more often, this phenomenon is likely occurring on a smaller, less frequent scale than critics might argue, or than readers of these critics’ arguments might assume. In fairness, Lilienfeld (2020) has subsequently clarified his position to reflect that “NE accounts for some, but by no means all, of the relation between microaggressions and adverse mental-health outcomes” (emphasis added, p. 31), which we believe reflects a much more tempered position that is generally consistent with the current results. However, given the ambiguity of the terms “some” and “all” in this quote, we believe the current analogy is useful in shedding light on the likely parameters of these relations.

There are three important supplementary points to make regarding this analogy. First, we recognize that it is both epistemically dubious and potentially dismissive to the experiences of racial/ethnic marginalized populations to claim that interpersonal interactions can be universally categorized as racially discriminatory or not racially discriminatory (Sue, 2017; Williams, 2020). While one can conjure numerous examples that clearly fit one of these categories, there are others (e.g., microaggressions) that could exist in a more ambiguous interpersonal space, such that the actor and perceiver disagree on whether racial discrimination has transpired or such that the discriminatory event is defined by some type of relative treatment. A comprehensive discussion of this complex issue is beyond the scope of the current manuscript, but we note it is largely a moot point in this context, since the variable “experiences of racial discrimination” is linked, similar to other interpersonal transgressions such as childhood neglect and emotional abuse (Banks, 2014), to subjective experiences of the perceiver. Regardless, we believe that this analogy is useful in conveying how these small effect sizes translate to the relatively small real-world impact of personality on perceived racial discrimination.

Second, Funder and Ozer (2019) invoked this analogy to make a contrary argument about the importance of small effects accruing over time and translating to meaningful psychological outcomes. We whole-heartedly agree with this notion – every racially discriminatory event has the potential to be negatively impactful to the mental health of racial and ethnic marginalized individuals, especially when considering the cumulative power of these experiences over the lifespan. We invoked the analogy above in an effort to cast doubt on the notion that personality traits like negative affectivity are related to consistent misinterpretations of potentially discriminatory events. If they were, it is unlikely that racial discrimination would predict mental health outcomes above and beyond the effect of negative emotionality.

Third, although it is clearly possible that having a relatively high standing on personality traits such as negative affectivity may be related to elevated rates of “misinterpreting” interpersonal interactions as racially discriminatory, there is no empirical support for this assertion. At best, previous literature has found that trait negative affect is not necessarily associated with general threat detection accuracy (Andric et al., 2016; Tamir et al., 2006). Moreover, it is simultaneously possible that this high standing is related to more accurate interpretations about occurrences of racial discrimination. Put differently, negative affectivity may be related to increased Type I error (i.e. identifying racial discrimination where it “does not exist”), but also reduced Type II error (i.e., identifying racial discrimination when it otherwise may not be recognized as such). It is very possible that over time, accurately-perceived experiences of racial discrimination lead to higher standing on negative affectivity and other relevant personality dimensions, which then leads to elevated detection of racial discrimination, and so on.

As a final relevant point, given the well-documented history of oppression, discrimination, and exploitation of marginalized populations, it could be argued that it is in fact adaptive and advantageous for racial and ethnic minorities to be more vigilant about detecting and identifying racial discrimination in an effort to vacate or avoid a harmful interpersonal situation (i.e., the risks of Type II error are graver than the risks of Type I error). For example, racial discrimination may increase the likelihood of behaviors that increase anxiety, such as heightened vigilance, and at the same time, such vigilance may be useful for maintaining safety when navigating racial discrimination across contexts.

Implications

We believe the current results have important research and clinical implications. First, one’s position on these important and complex issues has ramifications for the type of research that one advocates for and conducts. Specifically, Lilienfeld (2017) has argued that “one potential solution to the dilemma posed by [negative emotionality],” is a reconceptualization in which research “would be restricted to the question of why certain minority individuals are especially vulnerable to the perceived slights and snubs of majority individuals, and to the variables, such as personality traits, attitudes, and exposure to prejudice and discrimination, that predict individual differences in the interpretation of majority group acts and statements as hostile,” (p. 155). We believe that this call is misguided, namely in that it deemphasizes the importance of research designed to understand the perpetration of racial discrimination, including research questions about why certain “majority individuals” are especially resistant to the recognition of slights and snubs experienced by minority individuals (for a review, see: Carter & Murphy, 2015). Relatedly, this position has the potential to perpetuate the notion that the onus is on marginalized communities to respond in a particular manner to instances of racial discrimination (e.g., not “allowing” it to impact their mental health), rather than placing the responsibility on the individuals who are engaging in racially discriminatory behaviors. There is a clear analogy to be drawn with research on sexual assault: we take the position that the blame for sexual assault rests squarely with the perpetrator. As such, the importance of research questions about the degree to which sexual assault survivors are especially vulnerable to perceiving an event as abusive, although potentially interesting, pales in comparison to those about understanding the perpetration of this behavior (e.g., attitudes about sex, acceptance of rape myths). Taken together, if we conceptualize racism as a “fire,” the proposed research emphasis is akin to focusing on why certain materials are more likely to burn rather than on the source and impact of the fire. At the very least, we contend that both lines of research are potentially valuable and can inform one another.

In terms of clinical implications, we believe that these results may be beneficial in informing case conceptualizations of African American clients seeking treatment. Given evidence that denial and avoidance of racism is associated with lack of awareness about important racial issues (Carter & Murphy, 2015, 2017; Nelson et al., 2013) and diminished ability to empathize with African American clients (Burkard & Knox, 2004), it is important for clinicians to be mindful of how their racial ideologies may interfere with their ability to provide culturally competent services. Rather than conceptualizing a client’s race-related distress as a product of their personality and potentially pathologizing their lived experience, clinicians may deliver more culturally competent care by recognizing all of the interpersonal and structural factors that may be impacting the client’s functioning. Utilizing research on the mechanisms through which racial discrimination may be associated with mental health (e.g., rumination; Sarno et al., 2020) and individual differences (e.g., coping, Berjot & Gillet, 2011; Jones et al., 2020) that may exacerbate associations with mental health (Latzman et al., 2013) may allow clinicians to develop more holistic – and consequently, more accurate – case conceptualizations.

Limitations and Future Directions

There are several limitations of the current study. First, our conclusions are necessarily limited to the population from which our sample was drawn. Thus, the generalizability of our conclusions beyond this sample of African American adults of a relatively low socioeconomic status is uncertain. We strongly encourage research examining the interrelations between personality, racial discrimination, and mental health in more demographically heterogenous samples. Importantly, depending on the characteristics of the samples being studied and the focal research question, it may be advantageous to use a measure of racial discrimination that is more specific to members of certain racial and/or ethnic groups (e.g., Yoo & Lee, 2005). This is especially important given that discrimination occurs at the intersection of multiple forms of oppression (e.g., gender, socioeconomic status, sexuality; Bryant-Davis, 2019; Lewis et al., 2017; Watson et al., 2016). On a similar note, another key limitation to interpretation is our measure of racial discrimination: the EOD does not exclusively capture microaggressions. While the overarching criticism regarding subjectivity is relevant (e.g., the measure does not contain assessments of objective discriminatory experiences), we are unable to specifically address the argument about personality accounting for the link between microaggressions and mental health, but rather personality accounting for the link between broad experiences of racial discrimination and mental health. Although this is a shortcoming, we contend that it is possible that this measure is subject to similar interpretative biases as measures of microaggressions, such that individuals who “over-interpret” microaggressions may also be likely to “over-interpret” other instance of racial discrimination, and thus we believe the current results are still highly pertinent to addressing criticisms of this literature. Nevertheless, psychometric work delineating the uniqueness of different types of racial discrimination is necessary to accurately identify the degree of similarity across these measures.

Another important caveat is that the EOD measures frequency of experiences of racial discrimination, but not other pertinent variables such as degree of distress associated with these experiences. Furthermore, the weak and nonsignificant findings related to mistrust may suggest the need to assess context-specific types of mistrust that are particularly relevant to experiencing racial discrimination, such as cultural mistrust (Bell & Tracey, 2006). These are major points worth seriously considering, yet, we also believe that this study is one of many important building blocks needed to draw firmer empirical conclusions about the impact of racial discrimination on mental health. In other words, this study is a necessary, but insufficient piece of evidence that contributes to a growing corpus of research examining these links.

Although the eradication of racism is necessary and would be more effective than examining its sequalae, it is nevertheless important to contend with and better understand the current reality regarding the continued effects of racism on African Americans’ mental health. To maximize the degree to which such work is able to meaningfully inform our understanding of how racism is associated with African Americans’ wellbeing, research studies should focus on factors that mediate or moderate its effects, rather than operating from a framework where the validity of racism experiences is in question. Thus, in addition to taking issues of measurement seriously, we believe several additional lines of research would strengthen this evidence base and inform interventions designed to alleviate psychopathology symptoms among individuals who have experienced racial discrimination.

First, there is a clear need for longitudinal data that can speak more granularly to the interplay between these variables. Although there are undeniable benefits to longitudinal data collected over the course of several years (e.g., Seaton, Yip, & Sellers, 2009), we believe there is substantial value to data collected over a shorter time frame (e.g., several days), as this timeframe might be better suited to capturing temporary fluctuations in racial discrimination-related distress (i.e., capturing how an instance of racial discrimination influences one’s negative emotions in the immediately following hours). For example, Joseph and colleagues (2020) assessed a sample of African Americans on experiences of racial discrimination and negative emotionality at hourly intervals over the course of two days. While controlling for trait negative emotion, momentary racial discrimination was associated with higher levels of momentary negative emotions as well as lower levels of psychosocial resources, which is consistent with the current findings. Thus, racial discrimination may lead to a higher frequency of negative emotional experiences which, in turn, may lead to internalizing psychopathology. This research may build on work examining mechanisms through which racial discrimination may be associated with internalizing psychopathology, including rumination (Sarno et al., 2020) and hypervigilance (Himmelstein et al., 2015). To complement this shorter-scale work, longitudinal research using children and adolescents are also critical to understanding potential mechanisms. We believe a life course perspective will prove useful in illuminating how experiences of racial discrimination impact the development of personality traits as well as the emergence of various forms of psychopathology (e.g., Schmitt, Branscombe, Postmes, & Garcia, 2014; Simons, Chen, Stewart, & Brody, 2003). We are very encouraged by the prospect of these mutually informative lines of work, and believe that they are crucial for disentangling these relations.

Vignette-based methodology may also prove useful in this body of research. Since it may be difficult to measure very specific forms of racial discrimination in a longitudinal study, researchers could use vignettes to gauge how participants would hypothetically respond to different race-related stressors. For example, researchers could use a within-person experimental design to examine how certain individual levels variables (e.g., personality traits, aspects of identity, attitudes, social support, etc.) are related to responses to vignettes that systemically vary in levels of ambiguity related to racist intent. For example, it may be useful to adapt paradigms of general hostile attribution bias used with African American children (Nyborg & Curry, 2003) by changing the ambiguity to be about racism rather than hostility (i.e., to what extent was the character being intentionally racist?). Consistent with a transactional model of stress (Berjot & Gillet, 2011), incorporating protocol analysis to this methodology (i.e., participants are asked to “think aloud” regarding their responses to each vignette; Rose & Parfitt, 2010) may elucidate the mechanisms of differential responses to different types of race-based stress. This type of work may provide some clarity regarding certain qualities of race-related stressors (e.g., perceived intentionality) that may interact with traits to influence the magnitude of potentially deleterious effects. We believe this is another example of the type of work that is necessary, but not sufficient on its own to comprehensively address this research question.

As a final note about future directions on this topic, we invoke the Bayesian concept of a prior probability distribution (i.e., prior), which refers to the range of values (i.e., effect sizes) that one assumes will characterize the relation between two variables (e.g., racial discrimination and mental health) before new data is collected (Krypotos, Blanken, Arnaudova, Matzke, & Beckers, 2017). While priors are often based on existing data, there is also a subjective element of prior selection that can be based on other, non-empirical sources of information. Here, we suggest that we may have a fundamentally different conception about the prior that characterizes the effect of racial discrimination on mental health above and beyond the role of personality than critics of this literature, who might suggest that a reasonable prior is that the magnitude of this effect size is zero. We disagree and counter that a more sensible prior is that racial discrimination has a substantial impact on one’s mental health beyond one’s personality. In addition to the role of empirical investigations that contribute to our collective knowledge base, there are other more subjective, but still defensible ways of drawing conclusions about the relations between variables. For example, there is an enormous, centuries-long cultural body of work, including autobiographies, essays, and works of fiction authored by marginalized individuals of different racial and ethnic backgrounds that can be brought to bear on this question (Du Bois, 1903; Guthrie, 1973; Hudson et al., 2016; Jones et al., 2020). Though not directly quantifiable, we believe this evidence from these sources would weigh in the favor of racial discrimination being a critical factor on the development of the mental health outcomes above one’s general temperamental dispositions. Of course, this is not to deny the important role that empirical evidence plays in informing our understanding of this issue, but to acknowledge our bias that this is one of several influences that shape our perspective.

Conclusion

In a large community sample of African American adults, we present evidence that racial discrimination is a significant and meaningful predictor of mental health outcomes beyond the role of personality traits, which is inconsistent with recent criticisms of this literature. Although much more work is needed to explore these links longitudinally and at different stages of development, we believe there are important preliminary research and clinical implications to these findings. We hope to advance the discourse surrounding research on racial discrimination and mental health, with the ultimate goal of using the tools of clinical psychological science to improve the mental health of underrepresented populations.

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