An Exploration of Ethnic Identity and Social Reorientation among Youth
Constante Toala, Kevin
2021
Abstract
Youths’ sense of connection to their ethnicity, or their ethnic identity, has been considered a culture asset in that this identification with one’s culture is thought to be protective and promotive for youth development, especially ethnic minority youth in the U.S. (Perez-Brena et al., 2018). Youths’ ethnic identity have been linked with lessened engagement in health compromising behaviors and behaviors that support their academic success (Rivas-Drake et al., 2014). However, the field continues to ask how ethnic identity serves as a cultural asset. This dissertation considered how ethnic identity translates into the cognitive and behavioral processes that support adjustment. This dissertation bridged ethnic identity developmental theories with other identity-relevant frameworks for adolescence that emphasize the neuroscience aspects that supports social reorientation and identity development (Dahl, 2016; Pfeifer & Peake, 2012; Steinberg, 2008; Telzer et al., 2018) as well as the role of social identities in decision-making (Berkman et al., 2017; Oyserman, 2007). In study 1, ethnic identity development was examined in relation to two important facets of adolescent adjustment; resisting peer influence and future orientation (Miller & Byrnes, 2001; Steinberg & Monahan, 2007; Steinberg et al., 2009). It was expected that youth who had explored their ethnicity and had greater clarity about their ethnic group membership would demonstrate greater resistance to peer influence and demonstrate tendencies to weigh decisions and their consequences with the future in mind. The findings showed that ethnic identity resolution was positively associated with resisting peer influence, relying more on their own perspective than that of their peers. This suggests the importance of resolution development in how youth appraise and discern socially salient information. In study 2 considered how, if at all, ethnic identity development is implicated in the brain. Despite burgeoning research demonstrating consequential associations of youth ethnic identity with cognition, behavior, and adjustment (Rivas-Drake et al., 2014), little is known about how ethnic identity may be reflected in the brain. I considered large-scale brain networks that are known to support human social interactions, social cognition, mentalizing, processing social norms, motivation, and self-referential thinking (Feng et al., 2021). These large-scale brain networks, from a domain-general perspective, are viewed as important for making sense of social interactions and relating such experiences into one’s self-concept (Buckner & DiNicola, 2019). It was hypothesized that ethnic identity exploration and resolution would be positively associated with the functional organization of the default mode network and the frontoparietal network (Andrews-Hanna et al., 2010; Vincent et al., 2008). A person-specific modeling approach (GIMME) was used to characterize brain connectivity amongst these networks (Beltz & Gates, 2017). Clarity about one’s ethnic group membership (e.g., resolution) was associated with greater frontoparietal network density (e.g., number of brain connections that comprised one’s personalized brain connectivity model) -- the network that supports cognitive control. Altogether, this dissertation offers a novel perspective for how ethnic identity functions as a cultural asset. These studies found that ethnic identity resolution development may be one way youths’ connection to their ethnicity translate to how they cognitively appraise socially salient information. This mechanism could be at work when youth navigate their social environments in ways that promote their adjustment. At the brain level, resolution was linked with connectivity within the cognitive control network during the resting state, potentially reflecting the everyday ways resolution supports behavioral adjustment.Deep Blue DOI
Subjects
Ethnic Identity Adolescence Resting State GIMME Default Mode Peer Influence
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