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Perceived Racism as a Predictor of Paranoia Among African Americans

University of Tulsa, dennis-combs{at}utulsa.edu

David L. Penn

University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Jeffrey Cassisi

Fayetteville State University

Chris Michael

University of Tulsa

Terry Wood

University of Tulsa

Jill Wanner

University of Tulsa

Scott Adams

University of Tulsa

Recent theoretical models suggest that perceived racism acts as a stressor for African Americans and may be associated with a variety of negative psychological consequences, notably paranoia. Paranoia among African Americans is believed to reflect the lower end of the paranoia continuum based on experiences with racism. Thus, it may be beneficial to measure paranoia on a continuum, but few studies have adopted this strategy. This study examined the relationship between perceived racism and paranoia across the continuum in 128 African American college students. Participants completed three measures of paranoia and measures of perceived racism, depression, anger, self-consciousness, and hostile perceptions. The continuum of paranoia included measures reflecting cultural, nonclinical, and clinical paranoia. Perceived racism predicted cultural mistrust and nonclinical paranoia (lower end of the paranoia continuum) but not clinical paranoia. The implications of perceived racism in the prediction of paranoia for African Americans are discussed.

Key Words: perceived racism • cultural mistrust • nonclinical mistrust • continuum

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