Associations Between Personality Factors, Sociocultural Stressors, and Clinical Risk for Psychopathology Among...

Latinos in the United States experience acculturative stress and discrimination associated with their ethnic minority status that increase their risk for developing psychopathology. Little is known, however, about whether these social stressors are associated with clinical risk for depression or anxiety among Latinos, and prior work on social stressors and mental health among Latinos has failed to control for salient personality factors (e.g., neuroticism, distress tolerance) that are known to contribute to psychopathology when examining these associations. A sample of 800 Latinos were recruited to reflect the current Latino demographics of Texas. Participants completed validated measures of depression, anxiety, discrimination, acculturative stress, neuroticism, and distress tolerance. Results from logistic regression analysis showed that, controlling for the effects of personality factors (neuroticism and distress tolerance) and other sociodemographic covariates, both everyday discrimination and acculturative stress were associated with significantly higher odds of scoring above the clinical cutoffs for depression and anxiety. Findings suggest that the links between acculturative stress, everyday discrimination, and clinical risk for depression and anxiety remain after accounting for personality factors. Acculturative stress and everyday discrimination represent salient sociocultural stressors that may contribute to depression and anxiety above and beyond personality risk factors.