(PS10-23) Discrimination, Self-compassion and Ethnic Racial Socialization on Anxiety Among High Achieving Minoritized High School Students

Considerable research has established a positive relationship between discrimination and internalizing symptoms, including anxiety, among minoritized youth. However, limited research has examined protective factors for minoritized youth striving to persevere past race and academic-related stressors. Self compassion has the potential to serve as a protective factor as it is the ability to hold one’s feelings of suffering while maintaining a sense of warmth, connection and concern for the self. Self compassion has sometimes been found to be protective for mental health, although this pattern is not consistent in studies of racial/ethnic discrimination and psychological distress. Ethnic racial socialization (ERS), a culturally relevant family process factor, has found to be important in teaching minority youth how to cope with discrimination, with it encompassing four major components: cultural socialization (CS), prep for bias (PFB), promotion of mistrust (PM), and colorblindness (CB). Few have examined how distinct components of ERS may buffer or exacerbate the effects of discrimination on youth psychological wellbeing. This study examines whether being more self-compassionate and whether ERS messages might moderate the associations between discrimination and anxiety.  

Analyses were conducted in a sample of 303 minoritized youth (61% Female, M age=16) who self-reported on discrimination, self compassion, ERS, and anxiety. Main and interactive effects of discrimination, self compassion and each component of ERS on anxiety were examined via PROCESS macros. Discrimination significantly predicted anxiety across models (β=.350, .392 p=< .001) . Self compassion significantly predicted anxiety (β=.599, p=.018) overall, and the interaction between discrimination and self compassion was significant (β=.355, p=< .001), such that the simple effect of discrimination on anxiety was only significant among youth endorsing high levels of self compassion (β=.752, p=< .001). PM messages predicted greater anxiety (β=1.171, p=.002), and the interaction term between discrimination and PM was significant (β=-.221, p=.023) such that the simple effect of discrimination was strongest for youth who reported lower PM messages. There was a main effect of CS (β=.372 p=.046) on anxiety but no significant interaction between discrimination and CS. PFB and CB were not associated with anxiety and did not interact with discrimination to predict anxiety.
Most findings were contrary to expectations, we did not find self compassion to be protective, rather we found that youth who reported more self compassion were most likely to show sensitivity to discrimination through increased anxiety. Research has found that people of color cope with racial stress differently than they do other forms of stress. Youth who reported high parental PM messages showed an attenuated link between discrimination and anxiety, however these youth had more anxiety across levels of reported discrimination. It may be that, for youth who have been socialized to be wary of the dominant racial group, the experience of discrimination does not affect their well being as strongly as their counterparts. Findings have implications for the long-term well-being of minoritized youth.