Feeling Good, Happy, and Proud: A Meta-Analysis of Positive Ethnic-Racial Affect and Adjustment

One point of intersection in ethnic and racial identity research is the conceptual attention paid to how positively youth feel about their ethnicity or race, or positive ethnic-racial affect. This article reports results of a series of meta-analyses based on 46 studies of this dimension and psychosocial, academic, and health risk outcomes among ethnic and racial minority youth. The overall pattern of results suggests that positive ethnic-racial affect exhibited small to medium associations (r range = |.11| to |.37|) with depressive symptoms, positive social functioning, self-esteem, well-being, internalizing, externalizing, academic achievement, academic attitudes, and health risk outcomes. Implications for theory and research about the role of positive ethnic-racial affect among youth growing up in an increasingly diverse society are discussed.