2 - (SYM 47) Predictors of Distress and Positive Religious Coping for Muslim Americans of Diverse Identities: An Exploratory Path Analysis

Introduction: Muslims in the US are multiracial and multicultural, but few studies have examined the intersectional identities that may exacerbate experiences of Islamophobia, or reinforce positive religious coping, to contribute to mental health outcomes. For example, in Canada, Black Muslims reported significantly more religious discrimination and trauma symptoms but similar levels of anti-Black microaggressions compared to Black Christians (Williams et al., 2025). As religious women in the US rely on religious coping more than men (Chatters et al., 2008), perhaps religious coping similarly confers additional benefit for US Muslim women. Exploring how perceived Islamophobia and discrimination, distress, and religious coping differ based on race and gender would allow more targeted interventions for diverse Muslim populations. This study aimed to better understand these links with an exploratory path analysis.

Method: Participants included 314 adult, English-speaking Muslim Americans recruited through Qualtrics who identified as Middle Eastern (n = 47), South Asian (n = 86), Black (n = 70), or White (n = 111). Dummy coding compared Middle Eastern (reference) participants to other groups. Measures of perceived discrimination (Everyday Discrimination Scale) and Islamophobia (Perceptions of Islamophobia Scale), distress (DASS-21), and religious coping (Psychological Measure of Islamic Religiousness) were administered.

Results: Model fit was good, χ² (1) = 0.38, p = .540; CFI = 1.00, SRMR = 0.01, RMSEA = 0.00, 90% CI [0.00, 0.13]. Contrary to expectations, being male compared to female predicted more positive religious coping (B = 0.19, SE = 0.06, z = 3.18, p = .001). As expected, being Black predicted significantly more perceived discrimination (B = 0.42, SE = 0.18, z = 2.37, p = .018) and more perceived Islamophobia (B = 0.42, SE = 0.19, z = 2.20, p = .028) compared to being Middle Eastern.

Discussion: Our first finding suggests that Muslim men in the US report using more positive religious coping tactics than their female counterparts, which diverges from Americans of other, non-Muslim denominations, and is interesting given that male gender did not significantly predict less distress in this sample. Further, it is possible that colorism (e.g., bias against persons of darker skin tones) particularly impacts Black US Muslims such that they perceive experiencing more marginalization. Taken together, Americans who identify as both Black and Muslim likely face double discrimination that should be examined further.