Date of Award

2024

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

MA in Clinical Psychology

Department

Psychology

First Advisor

Elizabeth Brondolo

Second Advisor

Melissa K Peckins

Abstract

Purpose: Perceived racial discrimination (PRD) is defined as unfair treatment received because of one’s race. Although prior research has established that PRD is a chronic psycho-social stressor with various subdimensions, there is less research exploring whether unique profiles or clusters of discriminatory experiences exist. Further, although research has identified positive relations between discrimination and anger suppression and expression, it is not known if profiles of discriminatory experiences are differentially linked to patterns of anger expression (i.e., anger suppression, outward anger expression, or anger control). Therefore, the aim of this study is to identify profiles of discriminatory experiences in a sample of American born Black and Latino/a adults and to determine if these profiles are associated with different levels or patterns of anger expression. Method: The present study used latent profile analysis to model profiles of discriminatory experiences in a sample of Black and Latino/a individuals. To test whether profiles of discriminatory experiences are associated with anger coping, we used the automatic BCH approach in M plus for estimating the means of racism specific anger coping variables across profiles of discriminatory experiences. Results: We found four unique profiles that differed in frequency and intensity (i.e., Low All, Low Moderate, High Moderate, High All). We found that the High All profile was associated with the highest use of anger-in and anger-out. Conversely, we found that the Low All profile was associated with the lowest use of both anger-in and anger-out. The Low All profile was also associated with the lowest use of anger-control, while the High Moderate profile was associated with the highest use of anger-control. Conclusions: We found four unique profiles of discriminatory experiences that were uniquely associated with racism specific anger coping variables. These results provide insight into the heterogeneity of the experience of discrimination and its implications for anger coping.

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