How does race and ethnicity shape identity

For example, among two black individuals one may be African-American and another may be African-Caribbean. Race is a social construction that refers to characteristics possessed by individuals and groups.

The meaning of race is not fixed; it is related to a particular social, historical, and geographic context. The way races are classified changes in the public mind over time; for example, at one time racial classifications were based on ethnicity or nationality, religion, or minority language groups.

Today, by contrast, society classifies people into different races primarily based on skin color. Certain ethnic and racial identities may also confer privilege. What is Ethnic and Racial Identity? Ethnic and racial identities are important for many young people, particularly those who are members of minority groups. These dimensions of the self may instill feelings of: Belonging to a particular group or groups Identification with that group; shared commitment and values Ethnic identity develops in adolescence and is passed from one generation to the next through customs, traditions, language, religious practice, and cultural values.

Our ethnic and racial identities are also influenced by the popular media, literature, and current events. Ethnic identity may play a larger role among minority youth because they experience the contrasting and dominant culture of the majority ethnic group. Youth who belong to the majority ethnic culture may not even recognize or acknowledge their ethnic identity [2]. Phinney has proposed a three-stage model for adolescent ethnic identity development [2].

These stages do not correspond to specific ages, but can occur at any time during early to late adolescence. Individuals may spend their entire lives at a particular stage of ethnic identity development [2, 5]. Unexamined or diffused ethnic identity: During this stage, the adolescent does not consider the personal meaning of ethnic identity.

Adolescents can easily transition to adulthood without forming a sense of ethnic identity, particularly if they are members of the dominant culture.

Moratorium: During this stage, the adolescent actively searches for the meaning of his or her own ethnicity. This may involve researching ethnic group history, learning the language, and participating in cultural activities. Exploration of ethnicity is often triggered by an incident or event, such as a significant world event that is related to the ethnic group, or the death of an elderly family member.

Achieved: After a period of exploration, the adolescent now feels secure in his or her sense of ethnic identity. Overall, Americans are far more likely to point to their own hard work than to any other attribute as having helped their ability to get ahead. Across racial and ethnic groups, about half of men say their gender has helped them at least a little. White and black women are more likely to say their gender has been an impediment than an advantage, while Hispanic women are more divided.

Blacks are more likely than whites, Hispanics and Asians to say they have faced most of these situations. Within racial and ethnic groups, experiences differ significantly by gender. Among blacks and Hispanics, larger shares of men than women say they have been unfairly stopped by police, been subject to slurs or jokes, or that people have acted as if they were suspicious of them because of their race or ethnicity.

Hispanic men are also more likely than Hispanic women to say they have been treated unfairly in employment situations. Blacks with at least some college experience are more likely than those with less education to say they have faced certain situations because of their race.

Many of these experiences are also more common among Hispanics who were born in the U. Black men and women, as well as blacks across age groups, are about equally likely to say their family talked to them about challenges they might face because of their race or ethnicity. Among blacks and whites, those younger than 30 see their race as less central to their identity than their older counterparts. Still, majorities of blacks — and relatively small shares of whites across age groups — say their race is extremely or very important to how they think about themselves.

Below we discuss each of these key findings and elaborate on our contributions to the larger literature. First, the finding that racial discrimination is associated with all three psychiatric disorders is consistent with social stress theory and adds to the previous empirical studies on the effects of racial discrimination on mental health e. This finding indicates that group-based identification up to a moderate level may be particularly beneficial for Blacks and Asians when confronted with racial discrimination.

Notably, Brown and her colleagues found that Whites have the lowest levels of both commitment and exploration, Latinxs have moderately higher levels, whereas Asians and African Americans have substantially higher levels of both. While it is important not to ignore the heterogeneity within racial and ethnic categories in the responses to discrimination, future research with measures on the dimensions of exploration and commitment is needed to test this speculation.

Note that an exception is the Blacks, who exhibit externalizing disorders substance use even as their culture may be more collectivist than individualistic. More broadly, we emphasize that the nature of our data restricts our ability to come up with definite explanations. Indeed, there have been limited theoretical or empirical studies on the potentially heterogeneous pathways toward specific types of health outcomes for different cultural groups.

Compared with their immigrant counterparts, the U. Hence, the U. This contrasting pattern by nativity may also be attributable to the different levels of familiarity with American racial categories as well as differential coping resources that can be employed to deal with racial discrimination.

Such difference is possibly due to the relatively small sample size of U. These efforts may include facilitating individual counseling or group-level workshops or support groups that foster relationships with co-ethnics, facilitate honest discussion regarding race and ethnicity, raise their consciousness to racial discrimination, and discuss healthy strategies to respond to it Chae et al. For example, according to a study of African American youths, programs e. Hence, it would be also important to take in the ranges of related factors e.

First, due to the cross-sectional design of the survey, causal inferences cannot be drawn. To partially address this issue, note that the measure of racial discrimination more than 12 months ago preceded that of psychiatric disorders the most recent 12 months.

Though the timeframe of discrimination may lead to a concern of recall bias, severe discriminatory incidents are salient experiences that one is unlikely to have the recall problem Monroe, , Williams and Mohammed, Future research drawing on measures that capture the cumulative nature of racial discrimination unique to each group would add to the current knowledge base. It is consistent with the notion that one size does not fit all groups and neither does identity have similar effects with discrimination on mental health outcomes for all racial and ethnic groups.

The present study utilized a secondary dataset. This study passed the exempt review at the University Institutional Review Board. National Center for Biotechnology Information , U. SSM Popul Health. Published online Mar 5. Tran , c and David T. Takeuchi c. Thanh V. David T. Author information Article notes Copyright and License information Disclaimer. Bongki Woo: ude. This article has been cited by other articles in PMC. Introduction A cumulative body of evidence consistently documents a relationship between racism—usually operationalized as self-reported racial discrimination—and mental health impairments such as negative mood and depressive symptoms Brondolo et al.

The current study To sum, the present study first examines the association between racial discrimination and psychiatric morbidity. Methods 2. Measures 2. Nativity Respondents self-reported whether they were born in the U.

Other covariates We include a set of covariates known to influence mental health. Results 3. Open in a separate window. Table 2 Estimates from binary logistic models predicting psychiatric diagnoses.

Limitations First, due to the cross-sectional design of the survey, causal inferences cannot be drawn. Ethics approval The present study utilized a secondary dataset. Conflict of interest statement The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest. Financial disclosure statement None.

References Ai A. American Journal of Community Psychology. Diagnosing discrimination: Stress from perceived racism and the mental and physical health effects. Sociological Inquiry. From bi-racial to tri-racial: Towards a new system of racial stratification in the USA. Ethnic and Racial Studies. Perceiving pervasive discrimination among African Americans: Implications for group identification and well-being. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. Coping with racism: A selective review of the literature and a theoretical and methodological critique.

Journal of Behavioral Medicine. Racism and psychological and emotional injury: Recognizing and assessing race-based traumatic stress. The Counseling Psychologist. American Journal of Public Health. The costs of caring: Gender identification increases threat following exposure to sexism.

Journal of Experimental Social Psychology. Journal of Gay Lesbian Mental Health. African Americans' mental health and perceptions of racist discrimination: The moderating effects of racial socialization experiences and self-esteem. Journal of Counseling Psychology.