Day-to-Day Discrimination, Family Support, and Depressive Symptoms: Racial and Ethnic Contrasts

Abstract

This thesis examines the relationships among day-to-day discrimination, family social support, and depressive symptoms in a sample of African Americans, Latinos, and whites. Utilizing micro-aggression theory supplemented by the stress process framework, I find that day-to-day discrimination is inversely related to depressive symptoms in initial models, but those effects are reduced to non-significant by family support. Furthermore, the results show interesting race and ethnic differences. At both high and low levels of day-to-day discrimination, African Americans and Latinos receive a greater benefit from family support than do whites—with Latinos receiving the largest benefit. Whites who report low levels of discrimination do experience a benefit from family support; however, for whites that report high levels of discrimination, family support has no relationship with depressive symptomatology.