Dr. Tajuddeen A. Williams

Topic proposal

· Personal Essays

Research problem

Since well before the civil rights movement, Blacks have had to fight for their rights within the United States. Although it has not been 100 years removed since major racist movements targeted Blacks for lynching, discrimination, and violations of civil rights, Blacks have had to deal with a lot of it as they have attempted to find their place within society. From the 1900s to the 1960s, studies have shown Blacks to have low self-esteem and suffered from a host of intra-psychic and interpersonal problems. As the civil rights movement gained momentum, racial self-esteem started to increase as a direct result of the Black pride movement. The engagement of advocating for personal and collective rights gave rise to a higher sense of self. During the 1980s, less than 20 years after the Civil Rights Movement, studies continued to show that Blacks had high self-esteem but low personal efficacy.

However, despite the difficult circumstances of dealing with negative media images and racial messages about Black marginality, studies have shown that Blacks have higher self-esteem than Whites and other groups within the United States. However, self-esteem has not been a determinant for Black success within the growing face of adversity within this society. There has been increased killings by police, prejudice, and racist banter from individuals, groups, and political candidates alike, and studies have shown that this not only has a psychological impact, but a physiological one as well (Mann, Hosman, Schaalma, & de Vries, 2004).

Purpose

Despite the small number of people of color in the United States, Blacks make up the second largest minority but are killed at a higher rate than Whites by police. There continues to be a growing frustration of those who are killed by police officers when other options to deescalate exist. Studies show that Blacks are stopped at a higher rate than other races, which have often led to negative confrontations with police officers. Data from the New York Police Department show that over 50% of their “top and frisk” operations target Blacks with only 12% targeting Whites despite the fact that Blacks only make up 25% of the population (Gelman, Fagan, & Kiss, 2007).

The result of this type of action is typically frustration, low self-esteem, feelings of helplessness, and depression. With the constant bombardment of news and media showing unarmed Black men, women, or children being killed at the hands of police, it can cause posttraumatic stressed disorder for many who are exposed. Currently, many feel that the police are pushing Blacks to the breaking point with the increasing number of killings and lack of accountability (Correll et al., 2007). Many police officers get away with murder and avoid any charges.

Low self-esteem has been shown to correlate with some outcomes including but not limited to depression, suicidal tendencies, eating disorders and anxiety as well as violence as substance abuse (Renaud & McConnell, 2007). Over the past 15 years, empirical studies have shown that self-esteem is directly correlated to health and quality of life. Although recent studies show that Blacks have higher self-esteem than most races within the United States, it is my belief that they lack low collective, and personal efficacy in the face continued racism, prejudice, and bias.

Self-esteem is strongly related to a variety of measures of adjustment and is a central aspect of well-being. Studies show that individuals who are high in self-esteem are at a lower risk of depression. Despite the fact that collective and personal self-esteem may be high among Blacks, as a direct result of the continued bias and macroaggressions that many Blacks have to face on a daily basis, they may be more susceptible to depression.

Social identity theory and cognitive behavior theory

Within the context of this research, I would like to measure levels of self-esteem and psychological well-being within Blacks within the United States by utilizing the Collective Self-Esteem Scale (CSES). The CSES is directly related to social identity theory’s self-esteem hypothesis which studies have shown that intergroup discrimination elevates self-esteem and low self-esteem motivates discrimination (Rubin & Hewstone, 1998).

Cognitive behavioral theory posits that people who are affected by depression think differently than those who are not (Mann et al., 2004). Therefore, those who are depressed may view their environment and their future in a negative light. This is important because it may be able to explain part of the reason why there is a lack of progress within the Black community within the United States. As mentioned earlier, valuations of low self-esteem and depression can affect the quality of life (Mann et al., 2004).

Hypothesis

It is my belief that as a result of the direct actions of not only the police kills but the increasing racism within the United States, that Blacks as a whole suffer from low personal efficacy and hopelessness when looking towards the future. Collective self-esteem has been shown to be a predictor of several aspects of psychological well-being. However, despite self-esteem levels, it is also my belief that Blacks suffer from a lower quality of life as a result of environmental factors that’s not affected by self-esteem, but by low personal efficacy. I also hypothesize that

Operational definitions and measurements

My research plans to not only track measures of self-esteem and well-being, but also ethnic identity, life satisfaction, hopelessness, and levels of depression. Data for these questions will be collected on a Likert-type scale. Respondents will be asked to identify with a variety of social group memberships that include ethnicity, religion, race, and sex as part of the measure for self-esteem which will include 4-item subscales. Membership self-esteem will measure how worthy each thinks they are based on their self-identified social groups, whereas private CSE will measure personal judgment of one's social group. Public CSE will measure how well other people evaluate a respondent’s social group, and assessing one’s social group to self-concept will be done by Importance to Identity. In each of these measurements, respondents will need to “consider their race” while they respond.

Psychological well-being will be measured in a similar way, with a 4-point scale ranging from 1 (strongly agree) to 4 (strongly disagree). Life satisfaction will be measured with the Satisfaction With Life Scale (SWLS) developed by Diener, Emmons, Larsen, & Griffin (2010), which is a 5-item measure of the general judgment of one’s quality of life. The SWLS utilizes a scale ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree).

References

  • Correll, J., Park, B., Judd, C. M., Wittenbrink, B., Sadler, M. S., & Keesee, T. (2007). Across the thin blue line: Police officers and racial bias in the decision to shoot. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 92(6), 1006–1023. http://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.92.6.1006 ↩
  • Diener, E., Emmons, R. A., Larsen, R. J., & Griffin, S. (2010). The satisfaction with life scale. Journal of Personality Assessment, 49(1), 71–75. http://doi.org/10.1207/s15327752jpa4901_13 ↩
  • Gelman, A., Fagan, J., & Kiss, A. (2007). An Analysis of the New York City Police Department's ‘Stop-and-Frisk’ Policy in the Context of Claims of Racial Bias. Journal of the American Statistical Association, 102(479), 813–823. http://doi.org/10.1198/016214506000001040 ↩
  • Mann, M., Hosman, C. M. H., Schaalma, H. P., & de Vries, N. K. (2004). Self-esteem in a broad-spectrum approach for mental health promotion. Health Education Research, 19(4), 357–372. http://doi.org/10.1093/her/cyg041 ↩1 ↩2 ↩3
  • Renaud, J. M., & McConnell, A. R. (2007). Wanting to be better but thinking you can't: Implicit theories of personality moderate the impact of self-discrepancies on self-esteem. Self and Identity, 6(1), 41–50. http://doi.org/10.1080/15298860600764597 ↩
  • Rubin, M., & Hewstone, M. (1998). Social identity theory's self-esteem hypothesis: A review and some suggestions for clarification. Personality & Social Psychology Review, 2(1), 40–62. http://doi.org/10.1207/s15327957pspr0201_3 ↩

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