Date on Senior Honors Thesis

5-2019

Document Type

Senior Honors Thesis

Degree Name

B.A.

Department

Psychological and Brain Sciences

Degree Program

College of Arts and Sciences

Author's Keywords

racial microaggressions; psychological distress; older cohorts; younger cohorts; ethnic groups

Abstract

This study examines the relationship between racial microaggressions and psychological distress and anger rumination among younger and older cohorts who belong to a racial or ethnic group other than White or European-American. The purpose of this study was to compare these relationships between older and younger cohorts. The hypotheses were that age will moderate the relationship between racial microaggressions and psychological distress and that age will moderate the relationship between racial microaggressions and anger rumination. A survey method was used to test the two hypotheses. Participants were recruited from Amazon Mechanical Turk and were compensated $1 for their participation. The participants were divided into a younger group and older group to test the effect of age on the relationship between racial microaggressions and psychological distress. A test for difference between independent correlations was used to determine if the correlations of the younger and older groups significantly differed from each other, and a t-test was used to measure the relationship between age and experiences of racial microaggressions. The correlations of the younger and older groups did not significantly differ from each other; thus, the results did not confirm either of the hypotheses. Future research should examine how the effect of age on racial microaggressions and psychological distress varies across different racial and ethnic groups.

Lay Summary

This thesis studied the effect of age on the relationship between racial microaggressions and psychological distress along with anger rumination. Specifically, this thesis sought to examine if racial microaggressions affect the mental health of younger adults differently than older adults. The participants were divided into a younger group and older group to test the effect of age. The results showed that the effects of racial microaggressions on mental health did not differ between younger adults and older adults.

Share

COinS