Robert M. Sellers - US grants

racial /ethnic difference; African American; mental disorder diagnosis; identity; diagnosis design /evaluation; coping; psychological adaptation; quality of life; prejudice; health care model; model design /development; clinical research; computer data analysis; interview; human subject;

This Small Grant for Exploratory Research (SGER) addresses a major shortcoming in the research literature on African American racial identity. Past research has not fully addressed the psychological processes through which a person's racial identity influences social behavior and the interpretation of social events. The PI has developed a multidimensional model of racial identity as a conceptual framework to guide future research in this area. This exploratory research will examine three questions. First, how does racial ideology influence a person's interpretation of racially-ambiguous events? Second, how does race salience influence the interpretation of racial prejudice? Third, how does racial centrality influence performance on verbal tasks? An important goal of the research is to gain deeper understanding of stereotypes and prejudice.

A three-year longitudinal study will investigate how African American adolescents develop specific attitudes regarding the significance and meaning of race in the ways in which they define themselves. Specific race-related attitudes are referred to as racial identity. The research has three objectives. The first objective is to examine how parents' and peers' racial identity attitudes and racial socialization practices influence the racial identity of African American adolescents. The second objective is to examine whether adolescents' racial identity attitudes adhere to a specific pattern of change over time. The third objective is to examine whether particular racial identity attitudes are associated with more positive academic and psychological well-being outcomes for the adolescents. The Multi-Dimensional Model of Racial Identity (MMRI) provides the theoretical base for conceptualizing and measuring racial identity attitudes. The MMRI delineates the extent to which African Americans view race as a significant component of their self-concept and how they define what it means to be Black. The MMRI proposes four dimensions of racial identity: identity salience, the centrality of the identity, the ideology associated with the identity, and the regard in which the person holds the group associated with the identity. Every African American adolescent in grades 7 through 9 of a public school system in a small midwestern city will be recruited to participate in a three-year longitudinal study. The primary caregiver for each adolescent will also be recruited to participate in the study. The study addresses several limitations in the existing research literature. Although recent studies have begun to examine racial socialization practices, relatively few have examined it from an intergenerational perspective. By assessing both the parents' perspective on the racial messages they hope to transmit and the adolescents' perspective of what messages they receive from their parents, the present study provides a more complex view of the racial socialization process. The longitudinal component of the study provides a unique opportunity to examine how adolescents' racial identity attitudes change and remain stable over time. The investigation of the relationships between adolescents' racial identity attitudes and academic and psychological functioning also provides an opportunity to test the relevance of racial identity in the lives of African American adolescents. These contributions to the research literature are essential for a more accurate understanding of the unique racial and cultural experiences of a traditionally under-investigated population.

DESCRIPTION (investigator's abstract): The proposed research examines racial identity, race socialization practices, and psychological well-being outcomes in African American middle and high school adolescents and a primary caregiver. The study will examine these issues over a three-year period. The proposed study has three specific aims. These aims are to: (1) investigate the reciprocal relationships among parent and adolescent racial identity attitudes, race socialization perceptions, and experiences of racial discrimination in the process by which race messages are transmitted across generations; (2) determine the various trajectories in which racial identity development occurs as well as the factors associated with identity change in African American adolescents and adults; and (3) examine how adolescents' racial identity and parent and adolescents' experiences with racial discrimination influence African American adolescents' psychological functioning over time. The study utilizes the Multidimensional Model of Racial Identity as a conceptual framework. Six hundred forty African American students in grades 8,9, and 10 and their primary will be recruited to participate in the study caregiver from a public school district in a Midwest city. Regression analyses, structural equation modeling, and hierarchical linear modeling will be used to address the research questions raised in the specific aims. Results will be examined cross-sectionally and longitudinally as well as within and across generations. Findings from the proposed study should advance our understanding of culturally relevant variables and processes in the experiences and functioning of African American adolescents.

The present proposal is for twenty-four months of support for the Black Graduate Conference in Psychology (BGCP). The BGCP has been held annually since 1995. The conference was organized with three goals in mind. These goals are to: 1) provide African American graduate students in psychology with a supportive atmosphere to present their research and receive constructive feedback from fellow African American graduate students and faculty that will improve their research capabilities; 2) provide students with an opportunity to exchange strategies and experiences that will help them to thrive in graduate school and beyond; and 3) provide a forum for African American graduate students in psychology to develop long-lasting professional relationships with future colleagues. Each year since 1995, approximately 50 African American graduate students in psychology and African American faculty have participated in the conference. The conference is open to African American graduate students in all areas of psychology. As such, a variety of substantive research topics are presented. Conference activities consist of paper presentations, poster sessions, roundtable discussions and professional development presentations. Abstracts of students presentations are published on a website that is designed to provide African American graduate students with support and valuable information. Students are required to participate in all aspects of the conference. This requirement along with the small size of the conference fosters a climate of support and ensures that students get to know each other. The conference has had a significant broader impact on the field of psychology by playing a vital role in training African American graduate students to become productive and effective researchers. Over the years, more than 20 former participants have gone on to become academic psychologists. The impact of the conference continues to be felt as the research skills and professional contacts that former participants gained from the conference help them navigate the tenure process more successfully. This broader impact will only grow as more African American graduate students get a chance to participate in the conference.

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Research suggests that racial identity attitudes play a significant role in the way in which many African Americans experience the world. However, little research has been conducted examining racial identity at the unit of analysis of the specific event. As a result, little is known how African Americans'stable attitudes and beliefs regarding the significance and meaning of race influence the way in which they experience and behave in specific situations. This dearth of research is particularly problematic given the growing evidence that racial identity plays an important role in buffering the deleterious effects of experiencing racial discrimination on the mental health of African Americans. The proposed study attempts to address this shortcoming in the current research literature. In doing so, the proposed study has 3 specific aims: 1) To examine how individuals'stable racial identity attitudes interact with situational characteristics to influence when race is a salient identity;2) To determine whether situationally-specific experiences of racial salience influence changes in individuals'stable beliefs regarding the significance and meaning of race in their lives;and 3) To investigate the way in which individuals'racial identity attitudes and situational characteristics interact to influence the way in which individuals cope with specific experiences of racial discrimination. 740 self-identified African American first-year college students will be recruited from 6 universities to participate in a 4-year longitudinal study. Students'racial identity, racial discrimination experiences, and indicators of mental health (depression, anxiety, and well-being) will be assessed at both the situational and trans-situational level. In addition to an annual survey, the students will participate, each year, in 1 of 3 20-day conditions in which experience-sampling techniques will be employed. These conditions include a racial salience condition, a racial discrimination condition, and a control condition. Multilevel data analytic techniques will be employed across the various studies to achieve the specific aims of the study.

The Center for the Study of Black Youth in Context (CSBYC) will focus on research and action on social, psychological, and educational development among African American children and youth. The CSBYC has four major objectives: (1) to develop an infrastructure for a series of coordinated research investigations of the ecological, cultural, racial, and familial contexts that influence the development of African American children; (2) to provide training for early scholars, graduate students, and undergraduate students around skills necessary to do research and practice with diverse populations of ethnic minority children in diverse community and school settings; (3) to cultivate collaborative relationships and partnerships between the University of Michigan and local communities to inform current and prospective practice and intervention approaches for improving youth social and educational outcomes; (4) to serve as a resource and clearinghouse for scholarship, training, and practice approaches that can be utilized by scholarly and community stakeholders in the state more broadly, as well as among institutional and community settings nationally. To meet these goals, CSBYC investigators will conduct an initial research study of middle school aged children in four diverse community settings. The goals of the research project are to study ways parents and family caregivers socialize their children around race and to examine the influence of various types of parenting on child academic and social outcomes. Using multiple methods (surveys, family diary studies, qualitative interviews, and observations), the research will show how parents choose parenting strategies based on characteristics of their communities (e.g., racial and economic diversity) along with their appraisals of the racial, cultural, and class dynamics of their communities.

The CSBYC research will contribute to understanding of normative development of African American children within their varying family, neighborhood, and school contexts, which has received relatively little systematic attention. The study of Black youth from different social class backgrounds is important for a number of reasons. First, despite the growing Black middle class in America, a disproportionate number of studies have focused only on low-income Black children in urban settings and/or on high-risk youth populations. Consequently, race and social class often are confounded in research and in its application to practices/interventions to enhance youth development. There is less knowledge of family, educational, and social development processes of African American children across different social class groups and the implications of community social class and demographic diversity, such as Black families' movement to, and increasing representation in, middle class or suburban settings. For instance, studies show that parental education is one of the biggest predictors of school achievement among African American youth, yet even middle class African American students trail their European American counterparts in academic achievement. Such patterns suggest that parents of different social class backgrounds differentially negotiate the schooling process for their children. It also suggests there still is much to be learned about variation in family processes within lower and higher socioeconomic levels. By examining Black families from diverse community contexts, the CSBYC investigators will address important questions about the nature of development among Black youth in ways that can support the efforts of researchers, communities, schools, and families to encourage successful development among children and adolescents.

This research project addresses a persistent STEM problem: recruiting and retaining African American students. The outcomes should expand knowledge and understanding of factors that are deterrents to African American students entering STEM disciplines by examining the academic progress of college students at four different universities (University of Michigan, Michigan State, Wayne State and Western Michigan). The study will include students in both STEM and non-STEM majors to study processes unique to students from differing academic contexts. The Principal Investigators will collaborate with the NSF funded Michigan-Louis Stokes Alliance for Minority Participation (MI-LSAMP), a multi-university initiative dedicated to promoting persistence in STEM areas among underrepresented minority college students.

The longitudinal, multi-method design focuses on within group variation in the impact of personal characteristics and contextual stigma on African American student STEM success, which is an unexplored area of research. Multiple theoretical models of relationships among racial stigma, gender, racial, academic and other identities and academic adjustment and performance will be tested. Major research questions include: What types of stigma do students experience around their racial and gender group memberships? Does academic identity mediate the relation between racial stigma experiences and academic adjustment? Are there direct effects of racial identity and/or gender identity on academic identity, daily/situational motivation, and overall academic adjustment?

The research includes four inter-related studies using different methods integrated into a single research project. They include a longitudinal survey, a diary study, in-depth semi-structured interviews, and an ethnographic assessment of the institutions. Although the studies are designed to answer independent questions, combining the studies affords a unique opportunity to answer a number of questions regarding the processes by which African American students succeed and others fail in STEM fields in a manner that would not be possible without such a multi-method design.

The Black Graduate Student Conference in Psychology (BGSCP) has been held every year since 1995 and has demonstrated success in retention of African American graduate students in psychology. The goals of this conference are to: 1) provide graduate students in psychology with a supportive atmosphere to present their research and receive constructive feedback from fellow African American graduate students and faculty that will improve their research capabilities; 2) provide students with an opportunity to exchange strategies and experiences that will help them to thrive in graduate school and beyond; and 3) provide a forum for African American graduate students in psychology to develop long-lasting professional relationships with future colleagues. Conference activities consist of paper presentations, poster sessions, roundtable discussions and professional development presentations. Students are required to participate in all aspects of the conference. This requirement along with the small size of the conference ensures that students get to know each other and fosters a climate of support. The enhanced level of interaction also promotes the exchange of scientific ideas across different areas of psychology, encouraging a more informed and interdisciplinary approach to psychological research.

Over the years, the conference has played a vital role in training African American graduate students to become productive and effective researchers, some of whom have gone on to become academic psychologists. The impact of the conference continues to be felt as the research skills and professional contacts that former participants gained from the conference help them to develop professionally throughout their careers.

Racial discrimination is a frequent and often pervasive phenomenon in the lives of many African Americans. Research reveals that more than 60 percent African American adults report encountering racial discrimination in their lives. Frequent experiences with racial discrimination appear to come with some cost to the psychological and physical well-being of African Americans. Indeed, racial discrimination has been consistently implicated in mental health and physical health outcomes for African Americans. Although most of the previous studies linking racial discrimination to measures of mental health have utilized cross-sectional data, recent longitudinal research suggests a causal link between the frequency of perceived racial discrimination and psychological distress such that experiences of racial discrimination leads to subsequent distress. There is also evidence linking racial discrimination to Cardiovascular (CV) activity and physical health outcomes among African Americans. Importantly, not all African Americans are impacted equally by discrimination. One potential source for this differential vulnerability is racial identity. Racial identity is defined as that part of the person's self-concept that is related to her/his membership within a race. The goal of this project is to determine how racial identity attitudes influence appraisal and coping with racial hassles in African American students' everyday lives, whether these students appraise and cope differently with racial and nonracial stressors, and whether racial stressors have a more negative effects on students' mood and cardiovascular activity compared to nonracial stressors. This research project uses mixed-methodologies and consists of five interrelated studies that will explicate the processes by which college students' racial identity attitudes and situational factors interact to influence how they appraise and cope with racial hassles in their everyday lives.

The broader impacts of this research are evident in that it will shed light on the physiological implications of racial discrimination that have been linked to broader racial disparities in educational achievement and attainment as well as well being and health for African Americans. The research conducted within this project will also provide an opportunity for students from underrepresented groups to gain greater exposure to psychological research as research assistants and study participants, and will provide a valuable training experience for a number of undergraduate and graduate students.