ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Psychol.
Sec. Personality and Social Psychology
Racial Discrimination and Life Satisfaction Among Black Canadians: The Mediating Role of Social Support and the Moderating Roles of Gender and Place of Birth
Provisionally accepted
- University of Ottawa, Ottawa, Canada
Select one of your emails
You have multiple emails registered with Frontiers:
Notify me on publication
Please enter your email address:
If you already have an account, please login
You don't have a Frontiers account ? You can register here
This study used an intersectional theoretical framework to investigate the association between racial discrimination experience and life satisfaction among Black individuals aged 15 to 40 years old in Canada, exploring the mediation role of social support and the moderation role of gender and place of birth. A convenience sample of 860 participants completed questionnaires assessing life satisfaction, everyday racial discrimination, social support, and sociodemographic information. Results showed that participants exposed to higher levels of everyday racial discrimination had the lowest scores of life satisfaction, W (3, 409) = 5.74; p < 0.001. Regression analyses showed that everyday racial discrimination negatively predicted life satisfaction (β = -0.15, p < 0.001), while social support (β = 0.38, p < 0.001) positively predicted it. Results from the mediation moderated model revealed a negative association between racial discrimination and life satisfaction (β = -0.34, p < 0.001), which was partially mediated by social support (β = 0.37, p < .001). This research highlights the adverse effects of racism on Black individuals’ life satisfaction and underscores the role of social support in explaining these effects. Clinicians are encouraged to adopt an intersectional approach, especially for Black women and gender-diverse Black individuals who are at a higher risk of experiencing the impact of racial discrimination on life satisfaction.
Keywords: Racial discrimination, life satisfaction, social support, gender, Place of birth, black individuals, Canada
Received: 10 Jul 2025; Accepted: 10 Nov 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Cénat and Mistry. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Jude Mary Cénat, jcenat@uottawa.ca
Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.