Does Religious Coping Moderate the Impact of Racism-Related Stress on Depressive Symptoms Among African American Men?

Racism-related stress exposure has been shown to adversely affect African American men's mental health. Stress-buffering hypotheses propose that coping confers protective mental health benefits in the face of negative life events. Previous studies demonstrate that African American men rely on religion-centered coping strategies (e.g., forgiveness) when they experience racial discrimination and that such strategies are influenced by traditional masculinity ideology governing norms for emotion disclosure. Neither the influence of masculinity on religious coping nor the specific stress-buffering capacity of religious coping in the context of racism-related stress among African American men have been widely explored. We address these empiric gaps. Data were drawn from The African American Men's Health and Social Life Study, a cross-sectional investigation of 221 adult men (ages 18-78; M = 34) recruited from barbershops in urban and rural U.S. communities. Multivariate regression analyses results indicate that African American men with higher levels of education (β = -.16, p < .05) and with higher religious coping (β = -.17, p < .05) had fewer depressive symptoms. Depressive symptomatology was higher among African American men reporting more frequent racial discrimination experiences (β = .29, p < .001) and who endorsed traditional masculinity ideology around emotional disclosure (β = .21, p < .01). We found a significant effect for the interaction between religious coping and racial discrimination (β = -.22, p < .001), such that when religious coping is low, African American men experience increased depressive symptoms. Our findings affirm the racism related stress-buffering contribution of religious coping.