Racial/Ethnic Discrimination and Suicidal Ideation in Emerging Adults: The Role of Traumatic Stress and Depressive Symptoms Varies by Gender not Race/Ethnicity

Drawing from Race-Based Traumatic Stress theory, the present study examined whether traumatic stress and depressive symptoms differentially help explain the relation between racial/ethnic discrimination and suicidal ideation across gender and racial/ethnic groups. A racially/ethnically diverse group of emerging adults (N?=?1344; M_age?=?19.88, SD?=?2.25; 72% female; 46% Hispanic) completed a battery of self-report measures. A cross-sectional design was employed with a series of hierarchical linear regression models and bootstrapping procedures to examine the direct and indirect relation between racial/ethnic discrimination and suicidal ideation through traumatic stress and depressive symptoms across gender and race/ethnicity. The findings suggest an indirect relation through depressive symptoms, but not traumatic stress, and a serial indirect relation through traumatic stress to depressive symptoms in young women and young men, the latter of which was stronger in young women. The indirect relations did not vary by racial/ethnic group. Cumulative experiences of racial/ethnic discrimination may impact suicide-related risk via increases in psychiatric symptomology (i.e., traumatic stress and depressive symptoms), particularly in young women. Racial/ethnic discrimination experiences should be accounted for as a potential source of psychological distress in the assessment, diagnosis, and treatment of suicidal thoughts and behavior, especially among young women endorsing traumatic stress and depressive symptoms. Further research is warranted to better understand the gender difference in the relation between racial/ethnic discrimination and suicide-related risk.

     

Cortisol Stress Response Variability in Early Adolescence: Attachment,Affect and Sex

Attachment, affect, and sex shape responsivity to psychosocial stress. Concurrent social contexts influence cortisol secretion, a stress hormone and biological marker of hypothalamic–pituitary–adrenal axis activity. Patterns of attachment, emotion status, and sex were hypothesized to relate to bifurcated, that is, accentuated and attenuated, cortisol reactivity. The theoretical framework for this study posits that multiple individual differences mediate a cortisol stress response. The effects of two psychosocial stress interventions, a modified Trier Social Stress Test for Teens and the Frustration Social Stressor for Adolescents were developed and investigated with early adolescents. Both of these protocols induced a significant stress reaction and evoked predicted bifurcation in cortisol responses; an increase or decrease from baseline to reactivity. In Study I, 120 predominantly middle-class, Euro-Canadian early adolescents with a mean age of 13.43 years were studied. The girls’ attenuated cortisol reactivity to the public performance stressor related significantly to their self-reported lower maternal-attachment and higher trait-anger. In Study II, a community sample of 146 predominantly Euro-Canadian middle-class youth, with an average age of 14.5 years participated. Their self-reports of higher trait-anger and trait-anxiety, and lower parental attachment by both sexes related differentially to accentuated and attenuated cortisol reactivity to the frustration stressor. Thus, attachment, affect, sex, and the stressor contextual factors were associated with the adrenal-cortical responses of these adolescents through complex interactions. Further studies of individual differences in physiological responses to stress are called for in order to clarify the identities of concurrent protective and risk factors in the psychosocial stress and physiological stress responses of early adolescents.     

Correlates of Childhood vs. Adolescence Internalizing Symptomatology from Infancy to Young Adulthood

In light of its associations with child and adolescent health and well-being, there remains a need to better understand the etiological underpinnings and developmental course of internalizing symptomatology in children and adolescents. This study leveraged intensive longitudinal data (N?=?959; 49.6?% females) to test the hypothesis that internalizing symptoms in childhood may be driven more strongly by family experiences whereas internalizing symptoms in adolescence may derive more uniquely from familial loading for affective disorders (i.e., maternal depression). We evaluated the relative contributions of (a) family experiences (b) maternal depression, and (c) peer influences in testing this hypothesis. The results indicated that family predictors were more strongly correlated with childhood (relative to adolescent) internalizing symptoms. In contrast to previous findings, maternal depression also exhibited stronger associations with childhood internalizing symptoms. Although often overlooked in theories concerning potential differential origins of childhood vs. adolescent internalizing symptomatology, peer experiences explained unique variation in both childhood and adolescent internalizing problems.     

Transitional Justice and the Reform of History Education

Where does history education fit into transitional justice andhow can it contribute to the goals of transitional justice?The contemporary understanding of transitional justice has broadenedto encompass more than just prosecutions, reparations, preventingimpunity, and building rule of law. Transitional justice goalsnow extend to truth telling, restoring the dignity and preservingthe memory of victims, building peace, creating respect forhuman rights and democracy, and to reconciliation. Tools forachieving these goals now include truth commissions and commemorations.But this list has not until now included how the historicalnarrative of the group(s) involved in conflict must change asa part of transition; and education, while often invoked whenthe topic of ‘never again’ is raised, has been largelyabsent from the transitional justice discourse. Neither thelarger education system nor the teaching of history –both what is taught and how – has been considered by theinstitutions transitional justice has aimed to reform. Thisarticle considers why history education matters, what conditionscomplicate its reform and what recommendations can begin tobe offered with regard to the relationship between history educationand transitional justice.     

Parent-adolescent congruence for adolescent substance use

Parental reports of adolescent substance use were compared to the adolescents' self-reports using identical scales. Congruence was defined as exact agreement on whether adolescents were current users, ex-users, or never-users. Both parents were found to be less accurate in predicting their adolescents' alcohol use compared to cigarette or marijuana use. Single mothers were significantly less likely to be congruent than were mothers from two-parent households. Mother and father congruence on all substances was unrelated to the adolescent's sex, race, or after school employment. For both parents, congruence for adolescent marijuana use was significantly related to the age and GPA of the adolescent. Congruence may also reflect important properties of family functioning, as significant relations were found between both adolescent and parent ratings of family cohesion and parent-adolescent congruence on perceptions of marijuana use.This research was supported by Grant DA03706 from the National Institute of Drug Abuse (Hyman Hops, Principal Investigator).Jennifer Langhinrichsen is a doctoral candidate in psychology interested in adolescent and family interactions. The other authors are psychologists or data analysts working on family influences on substance use and mental health.     

European Integration and Citizens' Rights: A Comparative Perspective

The prospects for European Union citizenship are sometimes discountedby reference to homogeneity in the United States compared todiversity in the European Union. This article suggests thatthere may be more similarities between the two systems thanis sometimes supposed by many observers. Even though there areimportant differences, both systems have had to address similarquestions about how to combine the benefits of integration andthe protection of rights. In discussing the common and divergentfeatures, the author argues that comparison also reveals thepossibility that it is diversity, not homogeneity, that is necessaryto the protection of citizenship's rights.     

Reply to Lowe

The concept 'community' is underspecified in the political theory literature — it must have a more specific reference than just some collectivity or some network of social relations. But attempts to specify what is specific about the relation of community are unsatisfactory. And references to 'actual physical' communities overlook the symbolic and imagined aspects of community, which furthermore destabilise putative communities as much as they stabilise them. Analysis of social relations and networks, and theories of what patterns of relations are conducive to human flourishing should deploy more precise sociological categories.