Racial Discrimination and Risky Sex: Examining Cognitive-Emotional Factors in Black College Students

Abstract

Using the lifespan biopsychosocial model of cumulative vulnerability and minority health as a theroretical lens, the present study proposed two models to test the relationships among racial discrimination, cognitive–emotional factors, and risky sexual behaviors in a sample of 302 Black college students in the United States. Our models provided support for some of the hypothesized direct and indirect pathways. As expected, overt racial discrimination and subtle racial discrimination (i.e., racial microaggression) were both positively related to cognitive–emotional factors (i.e., anxiety, depression, hopelessness, and hostility). Racial microaggressions were significantly positively related to risky sexual behaviors, but overt racial discrimination was not. Hostility was the only cognitive–emotional factor that facilitated an indirect, significant effect from racial microaggressions to risky sexual behaviors. Potential implications are discussed for practice, training programs, and future counseling psychology research with Black college students using the lifespan biopsychosocial model of cumulative vulnerability and minority health.

Renewed Hope: Utilizing Freirean Pedagogies to Enhance Multicultural STEM Classrooms

“…The exclusion in STEM education often is most harmful to students of Color where their realities are positioned as invisible or undesirable. In the context of students of Color in STEM, racial microaggressions yield cognitive-emotional factors similar to hopelessness [19]. Freire [15] warns us of the danger of hopelessness and what distinguishes it from the properties of hope;…”