

On the other hand, to be considered a mediator, the personality-related characteristic would result (partially or fully) from perceived experiences of interpersonal discrimination and then, in turn, alter the reports of depressive symptoms. If a confounder, the observed association between interpersonal discrimination and mental health will be biased or altogether spurious. To be considered a confounder, a personality-related characteristic would alter the report of both interpersonal discrimination (due either to exposure or perception) and depressive symptoms. Personality-related characteristics, reports of interpersonal discrimination and depressive symptoms Specifically, it is unclear whether personality-related characteristics mediate or confound the association between interpersonal discrimination and psychological distress. An important limitation in the literature, however, is a lack of clarity on the role of personality-related characteristics in this association. In particular, evidence suggests that there is a positive association between reports of interpersonal discrimination and psychological distress, including depressive symptoms. Įvidence suggests that perceived interpersonal everyday discrimination is an important type of daily stressor associated with depressive symptoms that may have particular salience for racial/ethnic groups such as African Americans, Hispanics, and Asians. Researchers hypothesize that daily stressors may be an important factor in the development of depressive symptoms and disorders. Furthermore, depression is the leading cause of disability for individuals ages 15–44, with an estimated loss of labor productivity exceeding $31 billion per year. Recent reports indicate that roughly nine percent of adults report symptoms of depression, making depression the most common mental illness in the United States (US). Nevertheless, our results also suggest that, net of these characteristics, reports of interpersonal discrimination are associated with poor mental health.

ConclusionĪs one of the first empirical attempts to examine the potential confounding role of personality characteristics in the association between reports of interpersonal discrimination and mental health, our results suggest that personality-related characteristics may serve as potential confounders. However, interpersonal discrimination remained a positive predictor of depressive symptoms (beta: 0.1176, p < 0.001).

Hostility, anger repression, pessimism and self-esteem were significant as possible confounders of the relationship between interpersonal discrimination and depressive symptoms, together accounting for approximately 38% of the total association (beta: 0.1892, p < 0.001).
#Optimism and pessimism essay by puerto rican author series
We employed a series of ordinary least squares regression analyses to examine the potential confounding effect of hostility, anger repression and expression, pessimism, optimism, and self-esteem between interpersonal discrimination and depressive symptoms. We examined whether hostility, anger repression and expression, pessimism, optimism, and self-esteem served as confounders in the association between perceived interpersonal discrimination and CESD-based depressive symptoms in a race/ethnic heterogeneous probability-based sample of community-dwelling adults. Because personality characteristics may either confound or mediate the link between these reports and mental health, there is a need to disentangle its role in order to better understand the nature of discrimination-mental health association. Research suggests that reports of interpersonal discrimination result in poor mental health.
