The Moderating Roles of Gender and Socioeconomic Status in the Association Between Racial Discrimination and Psychological Adjustment

• Racial discrimination poses a significant risk to African American emerging adults.
• Gender and socioeconomic status may jointly influence the racism-mental health link.
• We discuss considerations for CBT interventions with African American young adults.

Racism-related stress poses a significant risk to the mental health functioning of many African American youth during the transition to adulthood. In light of the suggestion that personal and social factors might influence the association between racism-related stress and mental health functioning, this study examined the moderating roles of gender and socioeconomic status (SES) in the association between racial discrimination experiences and depressive symptoms, anxiety, and interpersonal sensitivity. Participants were 171 African American young adults (69% female; mean age = 18.4) recruited from a predominately White southeastern university. Regression analyses revealed that young African American men from lower SES backgrounds and women from higher SES backgrounds were most vulnerable to racial discrimination. These findings suggest that racism-related stress interacts with gender and SES to influence mental health correlates of racism-related stress during the transition to adulthood. We discuss how this knowledge can be used to inform assessment and cognitive-behavioral interventions for African American and other racial and ethnic-minority young adults.