2 - (SYM 93) Examining Social Pain Minimization and Body Trust as Longitudinal Mediators of the Relation Between Discrimination and Suicide Among Black Americans

Background. Suicidal thoughts and behaviors rates are high and increasing for Black individuals in the United States, and many of these individuals do not get professional help (Taylor & Chatters, 2020). In fact, trends suggest that suicide rates among Black individuals increased around 30% between 2014 and 2019 (Ramchand, Gordon, & Pearson, 2021), and suicidality has only increased since the COVID-19 pandemic. The goal of the current study was to examine the role of social pain minimization and diminished body trust as mediators of the relation between everyday discrimination and suicidal ideation among Black Americans. The authors previously found initial evidence suggesting support for the existence of this model, and our goal was to replicate this model using longitudinal data across three time points, each three weeks apart. Method. Our sample consisted of Black Americans (N = 308; 41.6% female) recruited via the Prolific online survey platform. Participants completed measures at baseline, three weeks later, and then six weeks later. Our attrition rate was 26.95%. To test the serial mediation, we used the PROCESS macro (model 6) with 10,000 bootstraps. We examined the relation between everyday discrimination at time 1, social pain minimization and body trust at time 2, and suicidal ideation at time 3. Results. The indirect effect of the serial multiple mediation was not significant, contrary to our previous findings and hypothesis. Additionally, the indirect effects of the two alternative single-mediation pathways were also non-significant. However, we did find evidence for a significant total effect of discrimination on suicidal ideation (b = 0.44, 95% CI = [0.22, .66]) as well as direct effect of discrimination on suicidal ideation (b = 0.34, 95% CI = [0.11, .57]). Additionally, we found a direct effect between discrimination and social pain minimization (b = 0.66, 95% CI = [0.44, .88]) and between diminished body trust and suicidal ideation (b = -0.41, 95% CI = [-0.60, -.22]). We did not find a significant direct effect between discrimination and body trust, social pain minimization and body trust or social pain minimization and suicidal ideation. Conclusion. As we did find evidence linking discrimination and suicidality, further research should continue to examine which mechanisms may facilitate this relation.