A positive attitude towards one's ethnic identity can help teenagers manage stress better than those who have a negative attitude, according to a new study.
Lisa Kiang and colleagues at the department of psychology at Wake Forest University studied 415 ninth-graders from Chinese and Mexican backgrounds. They found that the ethnic identity of the participants had an impact on their daily psychological well-being, according to a release on the university website.Each participant was asked to fill out a questionnaire regarding their feelings about their ethnic identity.
For two weeks, the students filled out a three-page checklist at the end of each day indicating the kinds of stress they experienced that day.
For example, the students would mark whether they had a lot of schoolwork to complete or if they had a lot of demands made by their family.
They were asked to rate their daily emotional status on a scale from zero to four, including how happy or nervous they felt that day.
Those with higher ethnic regard rated their daily happiness level higher than those who had a more negative attitude towards their ethnic identity, said the study published in the October issue of the journal Child Development.
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'So having positive feelings about one's ethnic group appeared to provide an extra boost of positivity in the individuals' daily lives,' the researcher added.
Source-IANS
SRM
