Does State Mindfulness Influence the Effects of Hostility, Cultural Mistrust, and Racial Socialization on Coping Strategy Preference Among African American College Students Across Types of Stressful Situations

This study investigated whether or not trait and state mindfulness influence the effects of hostility, cultural mistrust, and racial socialization on coping strategy preference among college students across types of stressful situations. Two hundred and eighty-eight African American college students completed measures of mindfulness, hostility, cultural mistrust, racial socialization, and coping strategy preference. Eighty-nine percent of the participants came back one week later to complete the second part of the study. These participants were randomly assigned to one of the six conditions in a 2 x 3 design. The independent variables were state mindfulness (mindful; control) and stressor scenario type (family, race-related, non-social). The dependent variables were the coping strategies that were selected after reading the stressor scenario. The results revealed that trait mindfulness positively predicted approach-oriented coping strategies and negatively predicted avoidant-oriented coping strategies. State mindfulness did not predict approach or avoidant oriented coping strategies. However, state mindfulness did interact with stressor scenario type's influence on planning and active coping. Most of this effect seems to be a result of the mindfulness manipulation on a race-related scenario. Several trait mindfulness measures successfully moderated hostility's relationship with coping strategies of all types. State mindfulness did not influence hostility's relationship with the coping strategies. Neither racial socialization messages nor trait mindfulness influenced cultural mistrust's relationship with coping strategies for any of the stressor scenarios. However, the state mindfulness condition moderated cultural mistrust in business' relationship with "focus on venting emotions" coping and planning coping preference across stressor types. Cultural mistrust in business only influenced coping strategy preference for race-related versus family stressor situations in the control (non-mindful) condition, not the mindful condition. Additionally, in the race-related stressor condition, the participants were more likely to select "use of instrumental social support" coping when "cultural pride and reinforcement" racial socialization messages were high rather than low, regardless of whether they were in the control or mindful condition. In conclusion, this research speaks to the importance of acknowledging stressor content and incorporating context-specific identity measures in mindfulness-based stress reduction programs for African Americans. The results also suggest that methods that increase trait mindfulness can be taught to hostile individuals in an effort to reduce behavioral disengagement and substance use coping. Future studies should further investigate the metacognitive aspects of mindfulness, specifically in the race-related stressor scenarios.