Taking It Like a Man: Masculine Role Norms as Moderators of the Racial Discrimination-Depressive Symptoms Association Among African American Men

Objectives. I examined the association between everyday racial discrimination and depressive symptoms and explored the moderating role of 2 dimensions of masculine role norms, restrictive emotionality and self-reliance. Methods. Cross-sectional survey data from 674 African American men aged 18 years and older recruited primarily from barbershops in 4 US regions (2003-2010) were used. Direct and moderated associations were assessed with multivariate linear regression analyses for the overall sample and different age groups. Models were adjusted for recruitment site, sociodemographics, masculine role norms salience, and general social stress. Results. Everyday racial discrimination was associated with more depressive symptoms across all age groups. Higher restrictive emotionality was associated with more depressive symptoms among men aged 18 to 29 and 30 to 39 years. Self-reliance was associated with fewer depressive symptoms among men aged 18 to 29 years and 40 years and older. The positive association between everyday racial discrimination and depressive symptoms was stronger among men with high restrictive emotionality, but this moderated effect was limited to men older than 30 years. Conclusions. Interventions designed to reduce African American men's depression instigated by racism should be life-course specific and address masculine role norms that encourage emotion restriction. (Am J Public Health. 2012;102: S232-S241. doi:10.2105/AJPH.2011.300485)