Black Men Need Friends: Social Support Moderates the Connection Between Gendered Racism and Psychological Distress

Gendered racism describes the gender-specific ways racism is enacted against Black men. Previous studies have associated the experience of gendered racism stress with psychological distress above and beyond the experience of gender role stress alone, but has not explored mitigators of this relationship. The present study examined the associations between gendered racism stress and psychological distress, then tested whether social support and gendered racial identity centrality moderated the impact of gendered racism stress on psychological distress. Data from 123 Black men living in the United States (Mage = 30.28, SD = 6.43 years) were collected via an online survey that included measures of gendered racism stress, social support quality and quantity, gendered racial identity centrality, and psychological distress. We replicated previous scholarship demonstrating that gendered racism stress was associated with psychological distress above and beyond gender role stress alone in Black men and expanded upon these findings by showing that the association between gendered racism stress and psychological stress remained after controlling for gender role stress, demographic characteristics, financial stress, and health stress. For social support, quality, but not quantity, buffered the association between gendered racism and psychological distress. A greater proportion of same-race peers in the workplace strengthened the correlation between gendered racism and psychological distress, however, this relationship did not remain after controlling for financial stress. Gendered racial identity centrality did not moderate the association between gendered racism stress and psychological distress. Our results indicate the deleterious effects of gendered racism stress on Black men, while also providing potential areas for intervention. Public Significance Statement This study suggests that Black men with high quality support systems may have protection from the psychological distress associated with gendered racism stress. This provides initial evidence for a community intervention focused on empowering Black men to build more supportive networks.