Evaluating the utility and validity of a discrimination‐specific measure of shift‐&‐persist coping

Abstract

Shift‐&‐persist (S&P) coping has been shown to buffer against the effects of discrimination on psychosocial functioning in racially and ethnically minoritized youth. However, existing measures of S&P refer broadly to coping with stress and are not specifically tailored to the type of stressor individuals are coping with (e.g., discrimination). The current study evaluated the measurement properties, utility, and validity of a discrimination‐specific adapted measure of S&P relative to an existing, general measure among a sample of 327 minoritized youth (Mage = 18.80, SD = 1.28, 78.6% female, 50.5% Black) recruited from a large public minority‐serving institution in the southeastern United States. Contrary to our hypotheses, when the item stem was changed to refer to coping specifically with discrimination, the measurement properties of a validated S&P scale (Lam et al., 2018) were worse relative to the original measure. Overall, the general S&P measure produced larger main effects and explained two times more variance in depressive symptoms than discrimination‐specific S&P. Findings do not rule out the idea that context‐specific measures may better characterize coping with discrimination experiences than ‘trait‐like’ general coping measures. However, results highlight that small adaptations to current measures may not be sufficient and may compromise predictive validity. Coping with discrimination measurement recommendations is discussed.