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Self‐esteem, cultural identification, and substance use among American Indian youth
Author(s) -
Swaim Randall C.,
Stanley Linda R.
Publication year - 2019
Publication title -
journal of community psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.585
H-Index - 86
eISSN - 1520-6629
pISSN - 0090-4392
DOI - 10.1002/jcop.22225
Subject(s) - moderation , psychology , self esteem , identification (biology) , substance use , structural equation modeling , confusion , clinical psychology , developmental psychology , social psychology , statistics , botany , mathematics , psychoanalysis , biology
Objectives Determine potential mediating and moderating effects of self‐esteem on the relationship between cultural identification and substance use among American Indian (AI) youth. Methods Anonymous surveys were administered to middle and high school AI students assessing levels of last month alcohol and marijuana use, cultural identification, and self‐esteem. Structural equation modeling assessed potential mediating and moderating effects of self‐esteem on the relationship between AI and white identification on alcohol and marijuana use. Results No mediating effects were found for middle school students. Among high school students, no mediating effects were found for alcohol. Among female high school students, a small mediating effect was found between AI identification and marijuana use, with AI identification protecting against use. Across all students, no moderating effects of self‐esteem were found. Conclusions The literature on cultural identification and substance use among minority youth is unclear. It was anticipated that consideration of self‐esteem as a potential mediator or moderator might help clarify some of the confusion. However, no moderating effects were found and mediating effects were limited to female high school students for marijuana. Consideration should be given to assessing other measures of cultural identification and subscales of self‐esteem to confirm that these findings are robust.