Black Americans’ Romantic

Relationship Interactions,
Daily Well-Being, and
Discriminatory Experiences
August I. C. Jenkins, Steffany J. Fredman,
Alyssa A. Gamaldo, & David M. Almeida

Center for Healthy Aging

Romantic Relationships and Emotional Well-
Being in Black Americans

• Romantic relationships are important for emotional health

• Marriage is associated
Relationships with better
strengths psychological health
and (Taylor et al., 2012; Williams et al., 2020)
supports
• Those in high-quality
romantic relationships
stressors report better
and
strains emotional health (Barr et al.,
2013; Thomas et al., 2012)
2
Romantic Relationships and Emotional Well-
Being in Black Americans

Racial Environment

Romantic & Family

Relationships

Mental-
Emotional
Health
3
The Racial Environment: Discrimination

• Mundane extreme environmental stress theory:

Antagonistic racial environment for Black family life (Peters & Massey,
1983)

• Results in experiences of discrimination

• Increases salience of relationship functioning for individual
well-being
• Some evidence of gender differences
• Women compromised by low spousal support and high
discrimination (McNeil et al., 2014; McNeil Smith et al., 2020)
4
The Current Study

Aims:
• Investigate the effects of daily positive and negative
relationship interactions on Black Americans’ daily
negative affect
• Examine the role of discrimination in these associations
and whether this differs by gender

5
Method

• Data from National Study of Daily Experiences (MIDUS II

and Refresher) (Almeida, 2005)
• N = 119 partnered (married and cohabiting) Black individuals

Variable M/%
Age 52.93 (10.82)
Household Income $65,534 ($49,252)
Men 46.31
Married 87.17
Working 58.22
Education (years) 13.5 (2.66)
6
Method

• Completed a measure of discriminatory experiences

• “In your day-to-day life, how often are you called names or insulted?” (Williams

et al., 1997)

• Completed an 8-day telephone diary protocol

• Positive Interactions: “Did you have an interaction with [your partner]
that most people would consider particularly positive?” (Almeida et al., 2002)
• Negative Interactions: “Did you have an argument or disagreement
with [your partner]? (Almeida et al., 2002)
• Negative Affect: “How much of the time today did you feel upset?” (Mroczek,
& Kolarz, 1998)

7
Findings: Negative relationship interactions
(WP) associated with greater negative affect

*
Negative Affect

0.5

0
Days without a Negative Days with a Negative 8
Relationship Interaction Relationship Interaction
 Findings: Discrimination moderated effect of
negative relationship interactions (BP) for
women

Black Women Black Men

Low
1.5
Negative Affect

1.5 Discimination
Average
* 1 Discrimination
1
High
* Discimination
0.5 0.5

0 0
0 0.125 0.25 0.375 0 0.125 0.25 0.375
Negative Relationship Interactions (BP) Negative Relationship Interactions (BP)
9
Acknowledgements

Funding:
Since 1995 the MIDUS study has been funded by the John D. and Catherine T. Foundation Research
Network and National Institute on Aging (P01-AG020166, U19-AG051426, 1R01AG047154-01A1).

August Jenkins’ time is supported by the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities
grant F31MD015215. Steffany Fredman’s time was supported by grants KL2 TR002015 and UL1
TR002014 from the National Center for Advancing Translational Science.

Thanks to:
MIDUS study participants for providing information about their life.

C.F.AS. and MIDUS Labs at Penn State:

Yunying Le, Emily Taverna, Aarti Bhat, Eric Cerino, Hyewon Chai, Natalie Gahm, Sara Miller, Johnathan
Rush, Sun Ah Le, Jacquie Mogle, Erica O’Brien, Rikki Slayday, Carlie Sloan, Agus Surachman, and
Britney Wardecker

10
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