Discrimination, Serious Psychological Distress, and Church-Based Emotional Support among African American Men Across the Life Span

Abstract

Objective: This study tested whether church-based social support buffers the negative effects of discrimination on serious psychological distress (SPD) among three age groups-early, middle, and late adulthood-of African American men. Methods: Negative binominal regression analyses for discrimination and SPD were performed using data from 1,271 African American men from the National Survey of American Life. Results: Discrimination was positively associated with SPD for all age groups. An interaction between church-based support and discrimination indicated that under conditions of high levels of support from congregants, discrimination, and SPD were positively correlated. However, discrimination and SPD were unrelated for low levels of church-based support. Further, the interaction was significant for men aged 18-34 and 55 or older but not significant for men aged 35-54. Discussion: This is the first study to document relationships among discrimination, SPD, and church-based support in a nationally representative sample of African American men. Overall, rather than revealing a stress-buffering function, findings were consistent with the resource mobilization perspective of social support, indicating that higher levels of assistance from church networks are provided when individuals experience high levels of both discrimination and SPD.