Gender differences in the relationship between perceived discrimination and personality traits in young adulthood: Evidence using sibling fixed effects

Long-term effects of grandparental child neglect on adult grandchildren's mental health: A three-generation study

Child neglect is a significant social problem with severe consequences for individuals and society. This study explores how intergenerational transmission of grandparental child neglect affects grandchildren's mental health in adulthood. We utilize a three-generational dataset from the Tromsø Study and estimate a linear probability model to find the distinct roles of both maternal and paternal grandparents. We test the additive risk hypothesis for continuous, intergenerational effects of child neglect in both the maternal and paternal lineages. Furthermore, we use structural equation modeling to test how sequential exposures to neglect across generations ultimately bear on adult mental health outcomes. Our results confirm the additive risk hypothesis but only for maternal grandparents: our findings show that only maternal parents' neglectful parenting is associated with an increased probability of depression in their grandchildren, conditional on whether their parents neglected them. These results contribute to research on intergenerational transmission by the finding that additive risks of child maltreatment flow down generations mainly through maternal lineages.

Daily general discrimination predicts changes in trait negative affectivity: A 30-year cohort longitudinal study using a random-intercept cross-lagged panel model

OBJECTIVE

Increasing evidence indicates discrimination is an emerging risk factor for reducing psychological well-being. Negative affectivity is a personality trait that has been associated with discrimination. Yet, few studies to date have examined the longitudinal relationship between discrimination and personality. The current study addresses this gap by examining how general discrimination and negative affectivity influence each other longitudinally.

METHOD

The Midlife in the United States (MIDUS) dataset was used for the current study. The MIDUS sample (N = 4244) was predominately white (90.7%), 52% female, and had an average age of 46 years old. Individuals completed follow-up measures 10 and 20 years after baseline. Data were analyzed using a random-intercept cross-lagged panel model.

RESULTS

Individuals that scored higher on trait negative affectivity also tended to score higher on perceived daily discrimination. We found general perceived discrimination at age 55 unidirectionally predicted changes in negative affectivity around retirement age, but not from age 45 to 55. In contrast, negative affectivity did not significantly predict increases in perceived discrimination at any timepoint.

CONCLUSION

Our results indicate that perceived discrimination has pernicious impacts on well-being up to a decade later and may do so by increasing an individual's tendency to experience negative emotions (i.e., negative affectivity).

The Mental "Weight" of Discrimination: The Relationship between Perceived Interpersonal Weight Discrimination and Suicidality in the United States

Extant research has investigated the relationship between body weight and suicidality because obesity is highly stigmatized, leading to social marginalization and discrimination, yet has produced mixed results. Scholars have speculated that factors associated with body weight, such as weight discrimination, may better predict suicidality than body weight itself. We consider this possibility among a sample of 12,057 adult participants ages 33 to 43 in Wave V of the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health through investigation of the relationships between weight discrimination and two dimensions of suicidality-suicide ideation and attempts. We also examine gender as a moderator of these relationships. We find that weight discrimination is positively associated with both suicide ideation and attempts, and this relationship is similar among men and women. Our findings underscore the need to address issues of weight discrimination in our society to better promote mental well-being.

Longitudinal association between perceived discrimination and sleep problems among young adults in the United States: Tests of moderation by race/ethnicity and educational attainment

RATIONALE

Although perceived discrimination is known to affect sleep, the findings of previous research are limited because they are mostly based on either cross-sectional data or non-generalizable samples, such as clinical samples. There is also little evidence on whether perceived discrimination differently affects sleep problems across different groups.

OBJECTIVE

This study examines whether perceived discrimination is related to sleep problems when considering unmeasured confounding factors and how that relationship varies by race/ethnicity and socioeconomic status from a longitudinal perspective.

METHODS

This study uses Waves 1, 4, and 5 of the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health (Add Health) and conducts hybrid panel modeling to estimate both within- and between-individual effects of perceived discrimination on sleep problems.

RESULTS

First, the results of the hybrid modeling show that increased perceived discrimination in daily life is related to poorer sleep quality when accounting for unobserved heterogeneity as well as time-constant and time-varying covariates. Moreover, the moderation analyses and the subgroup analyses demonstrate that the association was not found among Hispanics and among those with a bachelor's degree or more. That is, Hispanic origin and college attainment weaken the associations between perceived discrimination and sleep problems, and the differences by race/ethnicity and socioeconomic status are statistically significant.

CONCLUSIONS

This study suggests a robust link between discrimination and sleep problems and further elaborates on whether this association varies among different groups. Efforts to reduce interpersonal and institutional discrimination (e.g., discrimination at the workplace or in the community) can help to improve sleep problems and thereby promote overall health. We also suggest that future research consider the moderating roles of susceptible and resilient factors in the relationships between discrimination and sleep.

Gender differences in the association of polygenic risk and divergent depression trajectories from mid to late life: a national longitudinal study

Our research fills a critical gap in the depression literature by utilizing a life course perspective to examine gender-gene interactions in association with depression trajectories over time. Using data from the Health and Retirement Study, we estimated multi-level negative binomial and logistic mixed models to analyze gender-specific trajectories of depressive symptoms (CESD-8) and potential clinical depression risk from middle to late adulthood in relation to gender-by-polygenic-risk (PRS) interactions. We found increasingly greater female-male gaps in the CESD-8 scale and a higher probability of clinical depression risk with increasing polygenic risk scores. Furthermore, females' higher genetic vulnerabilities to depressive conditions than males vary from ages 51 to 90 years, with most salient larger differences at oldest old ages at 76-85 (e.g. 0.28 higher CESD-8 scale for females at ages 76-85 years than for similar-aged males; higher 3.44% probability of depression risk for females at ages 81-85 compared to similar-aged males) followed by old ages at 61-70  years (e.g. about 2.40% higher probability of depression risk for females at ages 61-70 years than for similar-aged males) in comparison to younger ages during middle adulthood. This study contributes to new knowledge of how gender-by-polygenic-risk interactions are associated with depression trajectories across the life course.

The effect of disability on educational, labor market, and marital outcomes in a low-income context

There is limited evidence from low-income countries on the multifaceted effects of disability on an individual's wellbeing. Using a nationally representative sample of 2.8 million individuals, we documented the association between disability and educational, labor market, and marital outcomes in Nepal. We obtained plausibly causal estimates by comparing these outcomes for siblings living in the same household. Individuals with disability were at a severe disadvantage in almost all of the outcomes we evaluated. Compared to siblings without disability, siblings with disability were 16.5 percentage points less likely to be enrolled in school, 6.9 percentage points less likely to be at the appropriate grade level, and 21.4 percentage points less likely to be employed. Consistent with the prevalent discrimination against girls and stigma on disability, individuals with disability had difficulty getting married, and the adverse effects were more pronounced for girls than for boys.

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We examined the association between disability and educational, labor market, and marital outcomes in Nepal.

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Individuals with disability were at a severe disadvantage in almost all of the outcomes we evaluated.

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The adverse effects were more pronounced for girls than for boys.