2020 Sociology Senior Seminar Research

“Cultural Crossings: An Examination of Foreign Culture’s Effect on Immigration,” Naomi Julia Roter*

Immigration to the United States has been a prominent topic throughout U.S. history, but the influence of foreign culture on immigration attitudes has largely been ignored in previous research. Utilizing Social Identity Theory to explore this relationship, the theory describes ingroup and outgroup relations, explaining tensions between native born and minority groups in the United States. Earlier studies find that once a commonality was established between separate groups of people, divisions between them began to fade. Using the 2004 General Social Survey (GSS) this paper examines how believing that foreign films, music, and books damages our national and local cultures influences support for increasing immigration to the United States, controlling for how republican the respondent is and their highest level of education completed. The sample (n = 1059) is compiled from a nationally representative pool of non-institutionalized U.S. residents 18 and older who identify politically as a democrat, independent, or republican. Consistent with Social Identity Theory, the findings suggest that respondents who believe that foreign culture is damaging our national and local cultures are less supportive of increasing immigration to the United States. Although it is a weak relationship, the data shows that even after controlling for “republicanness” and years of school completed, how the respondents answer the foreign culture question is a statistically significant (p < .01) indicator of their support for increasing immigration. These findings suggest that the arts and familiarity with other cultures have the potential to reduce ingroup bias and xenophobic attitudes.

“Mas Que Un Idioma: Attitudes Towards Immigration Within the Latinx Community,” Samantha Velez*

In the current political climate, immigration has become a very polarized issue. One of the most well-known theories to explain variation in attitudes towards immigration is Social Identity Theory. Social Identity Theory suggests that societies create in-groups and out-groups as a possible explanation but what happens when we focus on one sole social group? This study investigates the relationship between Spanish proficiency in the Latinx community and the existing attitudes towards current immigration rates in the U.S. In this study Spanish proficiency is viewed as a cultural tie to Latinidad. Utilizing the Pew Research Center 2018 National Survey of Latinos, a total of 1,068 respondents were analyzed. These surveys were conducted over the phone in both Spanish and English with Latinx individuals 18 years and older residing in the U.S. I hypothesize that respondents with a lower score of Spanish proficiency will express more negative attitudes toward immigration rates by stating that they believe there are too many immigrants in the United States. This study finds that there is no statistically significant relationship between scores of Spanish Proficiency and the belief that there are too many immigrants in the U.S. At the multivariate level both the control variables of age and U.S. citizenship were found to be significantly related to negative attitudes towards immigration. My hypothesis was disconfirmed but Social Identity Theory may serve as a possible explanation for Latinx in the U.S. identifying with certain identities over Latinidad in their relation to attitudes toward immigration.

“Are All Politics Local Still?: Variations in Local and National Political Participation in the United States,” Madeline Leonardos*

Political participation is an ever-important facet of United States democracy, but do patterns of participation differ from the local to the national level? Do citizens participate more or less in one sphere of politics and what might constitute this dissonance? This study utilizes data from the American National Elections Study Timeseries Survey from 2016 (N = 3447) to examine the differences in local and national political participation based on interest in politics, ideological extremism, and education controlling for religious attendance, race, gender, and age. This study finds that on average, United States citizens participate less in local politics than national politics. Additionally, the regression model for local politics (R2 = .109) is statistically significant (p < .01) yet weaker than the regression model for national politics (R2 = .164), indicating that the independent and control variables are better equipped to explain variation in national participation. The strongest predictors in the national model were the three primary independent variables of interest. The predictors for the local model included religious attendance and gender. Ideological extremism was significant (p < .01) in the national model, but not significant in the local model. Existing theory on political participation makes little to no distinction between variations in local and national participation. However, these findings suggest that there are important discrepancies between local and national participation which should receive additional attention in future research.

“Does Creative Thought Really Matter? The Impact of Arts Participation on Civic Engagement,” Arianna Cooper*

Art has been crucial in fostering individual and community identities, but does arts participation increase levels of civic engagement? I propose that individuals who attend performances and art exhibits participate in more public activities and spend more social evenings with neighbors per year. To test these hypotheses, I analyze 438 cases from the 2016 General Social Survey (GSS), which was a nationally representative survey administered to 2,867 respondents through face to face interviews. Findings provide partial support for my hypotheses. Regression results reveal that respondents who attended a performance or art exhibit in the last 12 months participated in significantly more public activities. There is not a statistically significant relationship between performance and art exhibit attendance with sociability with neighbors. Among control variables, education, family income, and age are significant predictors of participation in public activities. Family income is the only significant predictor of sociability with neighbors. Through a social capital approach, these results suggest that performances and art exhibits are associational activities that strengthen community ties, which increases an individual’s likelihood of voting and socializing with neighbors, friends, and others in public spaces like bars. Future researchers should utilize more specific measures of community involvement and civic engagement to continue studying the relationship between arts participation and civic engagement.

“Location of Education: Impacts on Returns to Degrees for Asians,” Kelly Tran*

Why might an Asian immigrant who earned a college degree abroad experience different returns to their degree than an Asian American with an American degree? Human capital theory suggests that additional schooling is rewarded in the labor market because employers value the skills, training, and knowledge that come from additional education. However, I propose that foreign education lessens the returns to degrees (job relatedness, income, and job satisfaction) for Asians in the U.S. labor market. I analyze a subset of 12,372 Asian-identifying respondents from the 2017 National Survey of College Graduates, a biennial survey of college graduates in the United States. At the bivariate and multivariate level, foreign educated Asians report their jobs being more related to their highest degree than U.S. educated Asians. Additionally, there is no statistically significant relationship between income, job satisfaction, and foreign education. Thus, my hypotheses are disconfirmed and human capital theory is partially confirmed. Of independent and control variables, the proportion of a respondent’s life spent in the U.S. is the largest predictor of job relatedness and income. The more time a respondent has spent in the U.S., the less related their principal job is to their highest degree and the more income the respondent earns. This study invites further research on returns to degrees for Asians by disaggregating the generalized racial identity into ethnic groups to uncover differences within the Asian racial group.

“The Language of the American Dream: The Effects of Immigrant Parents’ English Proficiency on the Educational Attainment of their Children,” Meng Wu (Maggie)*

Is English as a linguistic capital a significant determinant for the educational achievement of children of immigrants? What are the effects of English proficiency of immigrant parents on the educational attainment of their 1.5 or 2nd generation children? In this paper, I propose three hypotheses: (1) the higher the English proficiency of the immigrant parents, the higher the level of education they expect their children to achieve, (2), the higher the English proficiency of the immigrant parents, the higher the level of education the children actually attains and (3) the higher the parental expectations, the higher the actual educational attainment of the children. Data from all three waves (1992-2006) of the Children of Immigrants Longitudinal Study (CILS) was analyzed with 1,668 respondents attending the eighth and ninth grades (at the time of the first survey) in public and private schools in the metropolitan areas of Miami/ Ft. Lauderdale, Florida and San Diego, California. The study also includes the respondents whose parents participated in the second wave of the survey. Parental educational attainment is the strongest predictor of their expectations for the youth’s educational attainment and the youth’s actual attainment, with a positive relationship. Women also achieve higher levels of education than men. Parental English proficiency has no significant influence on their aspirations for their children and their children’s educational attainment. Yet, the higher the level of education the parents expect of their children, the higher the level of education completed by the youth. The results confirm some aspects of the status attainment theory, while rejecting others. 

“What Leads to Musical Omnivorousness?,” Owen M. Lynch

Why do some people listen to a wide breadth of musical genres while others prefer only one? Existing research on musical tastes suggests there is a lot more than mere taste that influences individuals to like or dislike particular musical genres. Using data on musical genre likes from the 1993 General Social Survey––which uses a stratified random sample of noninstitutionalized adults in the U.S.––to establish a sample of 828 music listeners, I link literatures on cultural omnivorousness, cultural capital, musical taste, and prestige by proposing that the patterns of an individual’s musical preference can be predicted through their educational attainment and income, when controlling for age. Using multivariate regression analyses and controlling for the age of the respondent, the analyses find educational attainment to be the only significant predictor of musical genre likes, with neither income nor age producing significant results. I suggest, therefore, that the theory of cultural omnivorousness is upheld, as respondents with higher levels of educational attainment had greater quantities of musical genres they liked.

“Move & Groove: A Closer Look Into Music Tolerance,” Harry Spitzer

What factors dictate an individual’s music consumption? How many genres do they listen to? Drawing Bourdieu’s habitus theory and Peterson & Kern’s “music omnivorous” theory, I propose that 1) higher academic achievement and 2) higher family income will increase an individual’s music tolerance, that is, they will listen to a higher number of music genres. I also predict that as the age of the respondents’ increases, their music tolerance will decrease. I analyze data from ICPSR’s population survey from May of 2008 on Public Participation in the Arts. This produced a sample of 1,282 cases to test my hypothesis. This study reveals that both family income and age hold statistical significance in relation to music tolerance. This study confirms my hypothesis on family income; individual’s with a higher family income are more likely to score higher on the music tolerance scale. Upon analysis, I found that my study disconfirms my hypothesis on age. The findings show that age has a negative relationship with music tolerance. As age increases, so does music tolerance. My hypothesis on educational attainment and music tolerance is nullified. While these results confirm, deny and nullify my hypotheses, it opens the door for more exploration on this subject matter.

“You’re Not The Man Your Father Was: A Study on the Changes in Masculinity and Gender Roles,” Morgan Grady

What does masculinity look like now and how has it changed across generations? Have these changes in gender roles affected men’s confidence in their own success? More importantly, does age impact the amount of gender role pressure one feels? Using data from PEW 2017 Research American Trends Panel Wave 28 with a sample size of 2,478 men ages 18-65+ English and Spanish speaking, I analyze one’s generation in relationship to the pressures and changes they face in today’s shifting gender role world. Those who believe men feel pressure to be an involved father, also believe that men feel traditional pressure to support a family financially, succeed in their job, and to be physically attractive. However, older men feel more pressure to be an involved father, while younger men feel more traditional pressure. Thus, we can infer that older generations believe men face more pressure to be an involved father today because they are comparing the new changes in gender roles to their own experiences as a father. When controlling for education, higher educated men believe that men in today’s society do face traditional pressure. These same men are less likely to believe that the changes in gender roles has made it harder to live satisfying lives, have successful marriages, and to be successful in work. Although, the findings do not support my hypotheses, the results tell an interesting story on men’s attitudes towards the shifting of gender roles and the affect it has had on their own success. 

“The Traditional Individual: A Study on Traditional Gender Roles and Mental Health,” Charles Bailon*

Gender roles are socially constructed norms prescribed for men and women in society to follow. Specifically, men and women have been assigned to traditional roles that are seen as "correct" for their assigned gender (i.e. men being the breadwinner and women being the housewife). Connecting traditional gender roles to mental health and well-being, this study investigates whether individuals who believe in traditional gender roles struggle more with mental health problems than those who do not. I propose that the more an individual agrees with traditional gender roles, the more days of poor mental health they will report. To investigate the relationship between traditional gender roles and mental health, this study analyzes a sample of 701 full and part-time employees from the 2018 General Social Survey (GSS). The findings show that there is no statistically significant relationship between one’s attitude towards traditional gender roles and days of poor mental health reported. Therefore, the hypothesis was not supported. However, several controls, including sex, race, and age, are significant predictors of poor mental health. Further studies can improve on this topic by utilizing alternative measures of traditional gender roles since measures have focused on the traditional male breadwinner model.

“The Influence of Chronic Illness on Mental Health: Does the Age of the Patient Matter?,” Marianna Santostefano

It is no secret that battling a chronic illness can impact an individual’s mental health, all while simultaneously harming their physical health. Although many say that this connection between chronic illness and mental health is obvious, we may still wonder if chronically ill young adults have a harder time coping with chronic illness and mental health. Does the age of the chronically ill patient matter? Are chronically ill young adults more likely to suffer from poor mental health than older chronically ill individuals? I hypothesize that the older the chronically ill patient the the better their reported mental health will be. To test this assumption, this study analyzes data from the 2010 National Health Interview Survey (NHIS) using a subset of chronically ill individuals aged 18 through 85, making the sample 4,257. Along with researching the relationship between age and mental health, I control for race, labor force status, and sex as well. The results from the analyses do align with findings from previous literature and are also statistically significant. These findings are able to support my age hypothesis as well as also provide insight on how not being in the labor force also affects chronically ill patient’s mental health.

“Seeing Green and Feeling Blue:  The Effect of Natural Environment Exposure on Mental Health,” Gina Pryciak*

Does exposure to natural environments improve mental health? Past research shows benefits from spending time in green spaces, including improved well-being, as well as better mental and physical health. However, these studies focus on spending time in parks, gardens, or other natural environments, and build their cases around the advantageous effects resulting from actual time spent in such places. This study focuses instead on if exposure to, regardless of time spent in green spaces, has similar effects. Using Attention Restoration Theory and the theory of Therapeutic Landscapes, I hypothesize that the more one agrees that they have access to or views of natural environments, the fewer days of poor mental health they will have. This study uses data from the 2018 General Social Survey, with a restricted sample of only those who are employed or temporarily not working. After controlling for race, family income, full-time employment status, size of place, and dwelling type, results show no significant relationship between access to or views of natural environments and days of poor mental health. However, multivariate results show that controlling for all other factors, white individuals had more days of poor mental health, and those who work full-time, live in single-family detached homes, or have higher family incomes had fewer days of poor mental health. While the results do not support the proposed hypotheses, they begin to indicate which populations have access to green spaces, as well as which may be more likely to experience poor mental health based on demographic characteristics.

“Regulation and Reporting:  Policy-Based Inhibition of Sex-Positive Cultures and Assault Reporting on College Campuses,” L. Esther Hibbs*

How does treatment of consensual sexual behaviour affect willingness to report assault on college campuses?  This study proposes that higher levels of inhibition of informed, consensual sex cultures lead to lower numbers of reported sexual assaults because they increase stigma and minimize discussions around sexual behaviour.  Stigma negatively affects willingness to address marginalized communities and deviant behaviours, in this case sex.  If people are not willing to discuss sex, change in instances of assault is unlikely because of high social stakes, represented through policies around consensual sexual behaviours. The study analyzes policies and reported sexual assault numbers (per 10,000 students) for a stratified random sample of 128 small (500-5,000 students), private, liberal arts schools, collected through national datasets and content analysis in Summer 2019. The study controls for Protestant Christian affiliation and Historically Black College or University (HBCU) identity. Inhibition level did not have independent statistically significant impact on reported sexual assault numbers on college campuses. The effect was created instead by Protestant Christian affiliation or lack thereof, directly impacting level of inhibition, which in turn affected number of assaults reported. HBCU status had no effect on sexual assault rates. The results represent that policy-based inhibition of sex-positive cultures on college campuses does not directly impact reported sexual assault. Therefore, the hypothesis was not supported. This implies inhibition level is representative of restrictive culture of Protestant Christian schools and the corresponding number of assaults reported, rather than being an independent cause for reported assault number.

“Fighting National Amnesia: Profiling Public Attention to Mass Shootings in the United States,” Miles Chandler*

This study aims to identify factors that shape public perception and emotional response to mass shootings in the United States. I suggest that patterns of media coverage inform public consciousness and collective emotion. Newsworthiness and gatekeeping theories assert that school or prejudicial shootings and those with more victims are reported on at higher rates. Literature on racial and immigrant bias in media demonstrates that non-white shooters also generate more discourse. The directed construction of shootings, and the affective public responses they generate align well with the concept of a “moral panic.” Using all valid cases from the Mother Jones Mass Shootings:1982-2019 dataset which align temporally with Google Trends data, I analyze the volume and decay rate of search topics “mass shooting,” “gun control,” and “open carry,” following US mass shootings from 2004-2019. Shootings with more victims predict higher volume of searches for “mass shooting,” and shorter search periods for “gun control” and “open carry.” Shootings with educational and religious targets had no significant effects on search patterns. Workplace shootings result in longer search periods for “mass shooting,” and shorter periods for “gun control.” Non-white shooters generate shorter search decay for “open carry.” The results support previous literature on media gatekeeping, suggesting events with more casualties generate more intense public attention. The consistent negative correlation between search volume and decay length suggests that sensational responses to shootings are not sustainable over long periods of time and prohibit pragmatically addressing mass shootings.

“Hiding Hate: A State-Analysis of the Relationship Between White Supremacy and Racially-Motivated Hate Crimes in the Trump Era,” Mya Iliana Garcia*

Is support for Donald Trump correlated with hate? This state-analysis examines the relationship between Donald Trump’s White supremacist politics and rhetoric and rates of racially-motivated hate crimes. Using the 2016 U.S. Presidential election results, the FBI’s 2017 Annual Report of Hate Crime Statistics, and the 2017 American Community Survey (N = 50), this study proposes that the higher a state’s percentage of votes for Trump in 2016, the higher a state’s rate of racially motivated hate crimes per capita. The results of the data support the opposite—that is, higher levels of support for Trump correlate to lower levels of hate crime rates. This study ends by discussing the effects of reporting and underreporting on these data, and proposes that what this study found is not that Trump states have less racially-motivated hate crimes, but rather that Trump states are underreporting hate crimes overall. 

“Higher Education and Religiosity: Does College Weaken or Bolster Students’ Religious Beliefs?,” Chloe Eisen

This study analyzes the impacts of higher education on religiosity among young adults. Much of the literature on this topic points to a secularizing effect among college-aged individuals, most notably the theories of moral communities and emerging adulthood. This research uses the third wave of the National Study of Youth and Religion (NSYR), which was collected in 2008 and produced a sample of 1,464 cases, to test the widely-held belief that college students exhibit less religiosity than non-college educated emerging adults. Age was also held constant as the survey only interviewed 18 to 24-year-olds. Running a regression analysis while controlling for the respondents’ gender yielded results that both confirm and nullify my hypotheses. College attendance is not a significant predictor of three of my four measures of religiosity: frequency of prayer, frequency of religious service attendance, and perceived decline in religiosity. The assumption that a college education is secularizing might no longer be true, especially for young women who report greater levels of religiosity than young men on two of the religiosity measures, significant at the p < .01 level. However, this analysis revealed college attendance as a significant predictor of one’s doubt in religious beliefs, but at a smaller alpha level (p < .05). Although religion is certainly changing shape in the 21st century, it may not be shifting in the way scholars have long predicted, and these changes certainly vary among different social groups.

“Religious Fundamentalism and It’s Effect on Government Spending for Environmental Protection and Improvement,” Nora Weber

Does a person’s degree of religious fundamentalism effect their support for environmental improvement and protection? Some sociologists argue that higher degrees of religiosity lessen a person’s concern for the environment while others argue that higher degrees of religiosity heighten one’s concern for nature. I propose that the more fundamentalist person is the more likely they are to think the United States government is spending too much on environmental protection and improvement. To test this hypothesis, I use data from a sample of 1047 respondents from the 2018 General Social Survey (GSS) Dataset, controlling for political affiliation, region, sex, race and age. While the initial bivariate analysis showed statistical significance (p < .01) between fundamentalism and lack of support for the environment, the multivariate regression analysis found no statistically significant relationship between a person’s degree of fundamentalism and their level of support for government spending on environmental protection and improvement. However, the multivariate regression analysis did find that both a person’s level of political conservatism and age are statistically significant (p < .01), with conservatism having the greatest effect. The difference in results between the bivariate and the multivariate analysis are most likely produced because in the bivariate analysis political affiliation effects fundamentalism which then appeared to effect environmental improvement and protection. The results do not support the initial hypothesis.

“Legacies of American Slavery in the South: An Analysis of White Racial Resentment Towards African Americans,” Rebecca Raveena Feldherr*

Engaging Institutional Replication, Racial Threat, and Intergroup Contact theories, this study aims to explore whether the historical institution of slavery in the United States is manifest in contemporary white racial resentment towards African Americans. Present differences in the residential integration of blacks and whites at the county-level is hypothesized to be a mediating factor in the relation between the presence of slavery in 1860 and attitudinal measures of current white racial resentment. This study analyzes three distinct sources of data: the proportion of slaves in 1860 counties is derived from the US Census Bureau, black-white dissimilarity indices are calculated from the 2017 five-year American Community Survey estimates, and racial resentment along with the demographic variables of this study are derived from the 2018 Cooperative Congressional Election Study (n = 10,880). The population of inquiry is narrowed so as only to involve data on the antebellum and postbellum South. While the present findings do not reveal a statistically significant association between slave legacy and white racial resentment, and black-white integration is insignificant, this study discerns that conservatism is a potent determinant of white racial resentment across all statistical analyses in alignment with insights of prior research. Holding constant all other variables, education, religious affiliation variables, and age impact upon white racial resentment levels. These results illuminate the grip of political ideology in the current era on reactionary attitudes related to race and provide fruitful foundation for further research.

“Differences of Income Among Mexican Americans based on Residence Size,” Jesus Pancho-Cuahutle*

This study asks whether Mexican Americans earn a higher income if they reside in a large populated area such as an urban city. Ethnic communities tend to have stronger support for their youth which can lead to better education and higher income. I propose that Mexican Americans will earn a higher income if they reside in a large populated area. I analyze data collected from the 2018 General Social Survey (GSS). The response rate for data collected in 2018 was about 60 percent out of a total 5,200 people sampled in a randomized probability sample. Of the 5,200 people sampled, I created a subset of people who identified as Mexican ethnicity which narrows the sample to 163 cases. Based on the findings, other variables impact the income of Mexican Americans more than population area size. Despite disadvantages Mexican Americans face, education is a prominent variable that increases their income. The finding results reject my hypothesis that population area influences income. This result is consistent with the research Mexican Americans that they found they have lower income and have a harder time assimilating in the U.S. as they still hold on to old cultural values and face discrimination.

“Do you Feel Important? A Focus on Asian Americans’ Perception of Social Rank,” Ally Lamb*

Why are Asians often viewed as the “model minority” group? Does this necessarily translate to higher self-esteem, social desirability, and self-perceived social rank for Asians? Building upon literature examining confidence, beauty, masculinity and the “model minority” stereotype, I use the General Social Survey (2016—2018) to study Asian Americans and their relationship with attractiveness and perceived social rank in comparison to White Americans.  My sample size is 3,062 and includes two subset samples of 124 Asians and 3,038 Whites. The element of attractiveness in this study helps address beauty and masculinity standards, representation of Asians in Western media as well as the idea that attractive people are more confident and successful. Interviewers in the GSS collected data by rating respondents on their physical attractiveness. Social rank helps examine a very ambiguous, general sense of perceived ranking in society that is not explicitly expressed by socio-economic class. I propose that a high attractiveness rating positively affects the level of this self-perceived ranking for Whites but not for Asians. I also chose to control for sex, age, family income and education. The results of the regression supported by hypothesis showing a statistically significant correlation between attractiveness and social rank for the White sample but not the Asian sample. However, the strongest variable of significance was the level of family income. Therefore, the more money someone makes, the higher they self-reported their social rank for both Asians and Whites. Due to the limited sample size of Asians, further research including a larger group of Asian participants should be conducted to study the relationship between attractiveness and social rank.

“Legalizing Sex Work: Could it be the Way to a More Equal Society?,” Carrie Everett Baker*

Is it possible that legalizing the sale of sex, the purchasing of sex, and the organization or owning of prostitutes and brothels could be a factor in creating a more gender equal society? I proposed that countries that had legalized the sale of sex would have a more gender equal society because there would be a society that prioritizes a woman’s right to choose as well as providing more access to healthcare, safety, and economic freedom. I utilized a sample of 196 countries and used gross domestic product, gender inequality index scores, and prostitution laws from various sources that spanned from 2017 to 2019. Gender Inequality Index scores were only impacted by the legality of the sale of sex and the gross domestic product per country however the legality of sale of sex, purchasing of sex, and organizing or owning prostitutes or brothels were all positively and moderately correlated. The results confirm my hypothesis that the legality of the sale of sex does impact the gender equality of a country while countries with a higher gross domestic product consequently have more equality amongst gender. 

“The Impossibility of Rest: Everyday Discrimination and Sleep Troubles Across Racial Identities,” Miracle Faith Freckleton*

Do experiences of discrimination affect sleep? Social stress theory illustrates that due to their social location marginalized people are exposed to more sources of social stress. Minority stress theory posits that due to their social location marginalized people experience more chronic stress. Researchers suggest that chronic stress and sleep troubles are interrelated. This research employs both social stress theory and minority stress theory to propose the higher one rates on the everyday discrimination index the more trouble one will have going to sleep or falling asleep. Additionally, Black people will report more trouble going to sleep or falling asleep than white people. This research utilizes 2018 General Social Survey Data and analyzes Black and white respondents who are currently employed (N =779). Correlations suggest that Black people score higher on the everyday discrimination index. Holding constant family income, age of the respondent, if there is a child in the home under the age of 18, and respondent’s gender, the results do support that the higher one rates on the everyday discrimination index the more trouble one will have going to sleep or falling asleep. However, the results do not support that Black people will report more trouble going to sleep or falling asleep than white people. The findings that people who score higher on the everyday discrimination index will have more trouble going to sleep or falling asleep is consistent with the aforementioned theories. However, the results that Black people report less trouble going to sleep or falling asleep than white people is not consistent with the theories.