Affective reactivity to daily racial discrimination as a prospective predictor of depressive symptoms in African American graduate and postgraduate students

Abstract This study examined whether individual differences in affective reactivity, defined as changes in positive or negative affect in response to daily racial discrimination, predicted subsequent depressive symptoms. Participants were African American graduate and postgraduate students (N = 174; M age = 30 years) recruited for a measurement-burst study. Data on depressive symptoms were gathered at two assessment points 1 year apart. Affective reactivity data was obtained from participants via a 14-day diary study of daily racial discrimination and affect. Participants who experienced pronounced increases in negative affect on days when racial discrimination occurred had elevated depressive symptoms 1 year later. Heightened positive affect reactivity was also associated with more depressive symptoms at follow-up. The results suggest that affective reactivity (either greater increases in negative affect or greater decreases in positive affect in the context of racial discrimination) may be an underlying psychological mechanism that confers vulnerability to future depressive symptoms.

• Publication year

  2018

• Venue

  Development and Psychopathology

• Publication date

  2018-09-12

• Fields of study

  Medicine, Psychology

• Identifiers
  DOI 10.1017/S0954579418000950PMID 30207260
• External record

  Open on Semantic Scholar

• Source metadata

  Semantic Scholar, PubMed

• No claims are published for this paper.

• No concepts are published for this paper.

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