۱٫۲٫ Empirical Findings on the Moderating Role of Ethnic Identity

There are a number of theories addressing ethnic identity that may complement MST and provide important nuance in investigating RSD among sexual minority men of color

Much of our work on RSD has been grounded in Meyer’s Minority Stress Theory (MST), which provides an apt framework for understanding how RSD contributes to adverse health outcomes among sexual minority populations . MST explicates the mechanisms through which distal and proximal identity-related stressors lead to poor mental health outcomes among marginalized populations, drawing special attention to the role of identity in the experience of stress-such as race- or sexuality-based discrimination. Meyer posits that characteristics of an individual’s minoritized identity-such as the extent to which an individual identifies with their minority status (salience) and their evaluation of that identity (valence)-modulates the experience of identity-related stress and subsequent health outcomes. However, there is limited research focusing specifically on ethnic identity among YSMBM, and how ethnic identity operates in the context of race-related stress within this population.

Moreover, there is considerably less research examining ethnic identity among sexual minority populations in general, and among YSMBM in particular

Building upon Erickson’s and ent [33,34,35], Phinney pioneered one of the most well recognized frameworks of ethnic identity [36,37], culminating in the creation of the widely used Multi-Ethnic Identity Measure (MEIM). In subsequent psychometric and construct validity work, Phinney established two key components of ethnic identity: identity search/exploration and identity commitment. Identity search/exploration refers to the effort that individuals expend in learning about, and making meaning of, their ethnic group membership. Identity commitment refers to individuals’ sense of belonging to their ethnic group, as well as how they appraise the relative value of belonging to their ethnic group.

Both Phinney and other scholars have suggested that higher levels of identity commitment may confer protective benefits and partially mitigate the effects of racial discrimination [36,38,39,40]. Having a robust and assured sense of self, as well as finding strength and solidarity through one’s group membership, is thought to deflect threats to an individual’s self-concept-thereby preventing identity-based attacks (i.e., racial discrimination) from negatively impacting psychosocial functioning [36,41,42]. Identity search/exploration, however, has been hypothesized to operate differently in the context of discrimination among some scholars. While not strictly negatively valenced, identity search/exploration is thought to represent a lack of clarity or full integration of one’s sense of ethnic identity (hence the need to explore). This uncertainty may make an individual more vulnerable to racial discrimination or prejudice, thereby acting as an exacerbating characteristic in the context of identity-related stress [39,40,43]. Though these two aspects of ethnic identity are conceptually distinct, researchers have mostly examined identity search and commitment in tandem (i.e., a composite measure is most often used), and the researchers who have disaggregated these two constructs have largely only focused on Latino and Asian men in their study samples [39,44,45,46]. The ways in which ethnic identity functions as a protective or exacerbating characteristic in the context of race-related stress is ultimately an ongoing empirical question, especially among populations that have historically been underexamined-and in the context of understudied racialized stressors, such as RSD.

There is an extensive body of empirical literature on ethnic identity in general, with most researchers reporting that stronger ethnic identity is associated with positive psychosocial outcomes among Black Americans and other racial/ethnic minority groups [47,48,49,50,51,52]. However, researchers have reported far more nuanced findings with respect to how identity search and commitment operates in the context of race-related stress. Among a sample of Latino adults, Torres et al. reported that ethnic identity exploration exacerbated the association between public, work-related, and academic-related discrimination and psychological distress . In contrast, ethnic identity commitment attenuated the association between covert discrimination and negative mental health outcomes. Torres and Ong reported near identical findings in a comparable study, in which they investigated the association between daily discrimination and next-day depression among Latino adults . Identity exploration again exacerbated the association between discrimination and depression, whereas identity commitment acted as a buffer. These findings coincide with theories of ethnic identity that position commitment as a protective characteristic and exploration as an exacerbating characteristic in the context of race-related stress.