Online Discrimination and Mental Health Outcomes: The Moderating Roles of Ethnic Identity and Immigrant Generation Among Latinx Young Adults

Public Significance Statement Immigrant generation and feelings of belonging to one's ethnic group may play a critical role in how exposure to online racial and ethnic discrimination (OR/ED) relates to Latinx college student's mental health. Ensuring that Latinx college students are appropriately supported may be helpful in reducing the negative associations between OR/ED and psychology well-being. In-person discrimination is robustly associated with negative psychological outcomes among Latinx young adults. However, less is known about the relations between online racial and ethnic discrimination (OR/ED) and mental health as well as potential protective factors (e.g., ethnic identity [EI]) that may mitigate these associations. Moreover, given that offline discrimination may be less strongly associated with mental health for 1st-generation individuals, further research is needed to understand how relations between OR/ED and mental health may vary by immigrant generation. This study examined (a) the relations between OR/ED and mental health among Latinx undergraduates; and (b) the moderating effects of EI and immigrant generation on these relations. Participants were 522 Latinx undergraduates enrolled in a public university in the Northeast U.S. Hierarchical regression analyses indicated that individual OR/ED (i.e., discrimination directed at the viewer) and vicarious OR/ED (i.e., discrimination directed at others) were significant predictors of mental health. Moreover, EI moderated the relationship between individual OR/ED and depressive symptoms as well as between vicarious OR/ED and social anxiety (SA). Additionally, both individual and vicarious OR/ED were more strongly related to SA for 1st generation students compared to students with two parents born in the U.S. Implications for supporting Latinx college students are discussed.