Black's Coping Responses to Racial Stress

The present study identified a plurality of coping responses, which provides a spectrum of cognitive, emotional, and behavioral strategies, both adaptive and maladaptive to combat the stresses of racism. These identified coping responses reflect a cognitive-contextual perspective, coined by the authors of this paper. This perspective reflects a combination of coping strategies that omit previous research which suggest mostly anger, depression, and anxiety as a possible response to perceived racial discrimination. These negative emotional responses are suggested to result in chronic physical and mental health risk. Current findings also support the need for examining these racism-coping phenomena from a biopsychosocial perspective. It would allow health practitioners information to treat individuals impacted by cultural stress from a holistic perspective and could be included as part of both mental and physical healthcare.