(PS10-25) Exploring the Associations Between Colorism, Racial Discrimination, Ethnic Identity, and Internalizing Symptoms for Adolescents of Color

While research has shown that adolescents of color face a heightened risk of poor mental health outcomes, race alone may not be a root cause of inequity. Instead, constituents of race (e.g., skin color) have been found to titrate experiences of identity-based discrimination that influence mental health trajectories 1. Colorism, or discrimination based on phenotypic deviations from Eurocentric ideals (i.e., skin tone), may compound the effects of race- and color-based discrimination and worsen mental health outcomes among darker-skinned adolescents of color 2. However, the existing literature on the effects of colorism is limited and focuses exclusively on single racial/ethnic subgroups. Potential protective factors impacting the relationship between colorism, discrimination, and poor mental health outcomes also require further research. Ethnic identity alignment, for instance, is one such factor found to buffer adolescents of color from negative mental health outcomes associated with racial/ethnic discrimination 3. This study will leverage baseline data from an ongoing study investigating the links between childhood adversity dimensions and psychopathology among adolescents of color to examine the relationship between colorism, racial/ethnic discrimination, mental health, and ethnic identity alignment across diverse racial/ethnic subgroups of adolescents. Based on existing literature, we hypothesize positive associations between colorism, discrimination-related distress, and internalizing symptoms, and negative associations between colorism and ethnic identity alignment, ethnic identity alignment and discrimination-related distress, and ethnic identity alignment and internalizing symptoms.

Participants are adolescents of color ages 12-17 years recruited from the community. Measures include the Adolescent Discrimination Distress Index 4, Ethnic Identity Scale for Adolescents 5, Modified In-group Colorism Scale 6, and PROMIS Depression and Anxiety scales 7. As data collection is ongoing, our proposed analyses will be completed in Summer 2024 with an anticipated sample size of 30-50 adolescents, sufficient to detect small-to-medium effects based on an a priori power analysis. Bivariate correlations will be used to explore the associations between colorism, discrimination distress, internalizing symptoms, and ethnic identity alignment. We expect our results to highlight the role of colorism in race-related discrimination and subsequent mental health outcomes among a diverse sample of youth of color. Additionally, our results may highlight the protective role of ethnic identity, which could aid in identifying potential targets of interventions (e.g., racial or ethnic pride) to reduce mental health disparities among darker-skinned adolescents of color.