Abstract
Research indicates that Black Americans are at higher risk for trauma symptoms due to exposure to racial discrimination. However, the degree to which Black Americans appraise discriminatory events as threatening and how their coping with discrimination affects traumatization remains unclear. In the current study, an online sample of Black American adults (N = 414), threat appraisal was tested as a mechanism through which direct and vicarious discrimination predicts trauma symptoms. Coping strategies were explored as potentially influencing the impact of discrimination on trauma. Perceived racial discrimination had a large effect (r = .67) on trauma symptoms and both direct and vicarious racism were positively related to trauma symptoms through threat appraisal. Avoidant coping (i.e., disengagement or withdrawal from reminders of stressors) strengthened the effect of direct discrimination on trauma symptoms in middle-aged and older Black Americans but not younger adults. Additionally, neither problem-focused nor social support coping influenced the discrimination–trauma relationship. The implications of the findings, possible future directions, and limitations of the study are discussed.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
Supplementary Material
Please find the following supplemental material available below.
For Open Access articles published under a Creative Commons License, all supplemental material carries the same license as the article it is associated with.
For non-Open Access articles published, all supplemental material carries a non-exclusive license, and permission requests for re-use of supplemental material or any part of supplemental material shall be sent directly to the copyright owner as specified in the copyright notice associated with the article.
