Proactive coping with racial discrimination May exacerbate race-based traumatic stress in diverse young adults

Racial discrimination is consistently linked with post-traumatic stress symptomatology. It is essential to identify adaptive coping strategies in order to disrupt racial disparities in mental health. Proactive coping with discrimination-efforts taken before or during an exposure in order to minimize its harmful effects-is a potential avenue to minimize race-based traumatic stress.

We tested proactive coping as a moderator of the association between everyday discrimination and race-based traumatic stress symptoms among 1,433 racially diverse U.S. young adults. We further disaggregated results to examine trends across Asian, Black, and Latiné respondents.

In the full analytic sample, proactive coping appeared to exacerbate the link between everyday discrimination exposure and race-based traumatic stress symptoms. The race-stratified analyses suggest that this finding was driven by Black and Latiné young adults. In Asian respondents, there was no moderation nor a direct association of proactive coping.

The results suggest that proactive coping may reflect increased racial vigilance and self-monitoring-behaviors reflective of traumatic stress symptomatology. Future research must further disentangle anticipatory coping styles to understand their unique utility and identify means of promotion. Clinicians might prioritize using mindfulness- and acceptance-based therapeutic approaches with clients, to mitigate vigilance and avoidance of stressful race-related emotionality.