Structure and Dynamics of Daily Psychopathology in Ethnoracially Minoritized Youth: Links to Discrimination and Stress

Racial discrimination is a pervasive adolescent stressor, yet hierarchical-dimensional frameworks such as HiTOP have been validated in samples underrepresenting minoritized youth, and daily-level evidence on discrimination and youth mental health comes almost entirely from U.S. samples and narrow symptom sets. In a preregistered 29-day daily-diary study of 310 ethnoracially minoritized adolescents (ages 14–21) in Germany (8,054 person-days), we evaluated a HiTOP-aligned daily symptom inventory and examined how daily racial discrimination and general stress related to symptom fluctuations. Six factors replicated within persons, while the between-person structure resolved into three broader spectra. Discrimination and general stress both predicted same-day symptom elevations; next-day associations were largely absent or indicated recovery. Beyond general stress, discrimination showed incremental same-day elevations in internalizing, antagonism, disinhibition, and psychoticism, strongest for antagonism. Discrimination operated as an acute, identity-relevant stressor not reducible to general daily stress.