Introduction • Experiences with racial discrimination have a profound effect

on numerous psychological health outcomes, including negative emotions (Williams & Mohammed, 2009)

• Stress and coping models have been developed to explain how racism, emotions, and well-being are linked: • Biopsychosocial model (Clark et al., 1999) • Multidimensional Conceptualization of Racism-Related

Stress (Harrell, 2000) • Racial Identity—the significance and meaning of race (Sellers

et al., 1998) --has been identified as a protective factor in the study of discrimination and well-being

• Current study aimed to investigate how African American college students’ racial identity might be temporarily primed, and in turn, how racial identity would impact emotional responses to a discriminatory event

Limitations and Methodological Alternatives • Majority of studies rely on retrospective recall--lifetime or

past year measures of discrimination and symptoms--which suffers from several limitations, and does not allow for measuring immediate emotional responses • As such, assessing specific discriminatory events

important to understanding mechanisms. • One innovative way to examine the role of racial identity (RI)

in the context of a specific discriminatory event is to cognitively prime the construct

• Previous research suggests that priming a social identity such as RI, can affect behavior and attitudes (e.g., Bargh et al., 1996).

• Complex constructs such as RI may require more sophisticated priming techniques, such as Iconic Priming, which uses dynamic images (Hong et al., 2000)

Research Questions • What is the feasibility of priming RI using icons? (Study 1) • How does priming particular racial ideologies impact

immediate emotional responses? (Study 2) • How does the subtlety of the event interact with ideology

priming? (Study 2) • How does one’s self-reported ideology interact with primed RI

to impact emotional response? (Study 2)

Discussion • Taken together, the studies extend the extant literature

related to understanding emotional responses to discrimination

• Study 1 extends Hong’s methodology to the study of racial identity

• Study 2 suggests that aspects of racial ideology, namely humanist ideology, can impact emotional responses to blatant, vicarious racism. • Assimilationist ideology appeared emotionally

protective • Neutral priming condition related to greatest increases

in negative emotions

Observations and Caveats • Lack of time period interactions limits interpretation of

findings • Only blatant condition implicated in findings • No blatant vs. subtle differences for active conditions • Contextual moderators

• Gender emerged • SES (i.e. maternal education) did not emerge

Implications • Methodological

• Study extends Hong et al. (2000) and Kawakami and colleagues’ (2009) paradigms, providing a novel approach to study vicarious discrimination

• Clinicians should: • Inquire as to the type of discrimination (e.g., subtle,

vicarious) • Be aware of significance and meaning of race in lives of

African American clients

Limitations and Future Directions • Studies may have been underpowered • Study 1 findings do not provide “burden of evidence” for

iconic priming paradigm • Racial identity subscales had only modest reliabilities • Future work could capture observational and physiological

data

Conclusions • Findings add to the growing literature investigating

emotional responses to racial discrimination. • Work makes attempt to study the protective role of racial

identity in the context of specific events • The studies add commentary to society’s current discourse

related to racism

Shawn C.T. Jones & Enrique W. Neblett

University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Acknowledgments We would like to thank the African American Youth Wellness Lab (AAYWL), RAs, confederates, consultants, APAGS, and the APA Science Student Council

Further information Please contact jonessc@email.unc.edu for more information about upcoming projects.

“I hate it when they do that”: Examining the Role of Racial Identity Priming on

African Americans’ Emotional Responses to Racism

STUDY 1

Method

Participants • 50 self-identified African American college students (80% female) • Age: 18-29, Mean 20.18 (SD=2.34) • Family SES: Median reported SES was ‘Middle Class’

Procedure • Participants completed a brief sociodemographic questionnaire and three

purportedly unrelated tasks • Iconic Priming Paradigm • Sudoku (Filler Task) • Racial Ideology Questionnaire

Iconic Priming Images (Figure 1) • 20 color and black/white images selected following pilot testing • Four conditions (participants randomly assigned to conditions)

• Assimilationist, Humanist, Nationalist, Neutral • 5 images per condition

• Images displayed for 30s each, and accompanied by prompts (e.g., “what does this picture represent”

Measures • Post Priming Racial Ideology Questionnaire

• 12 ideology items from Multidimensional Inventory of Black Identity (Sellers et al., 1997)

• Ideology Scales • Assimilationist: α = .55, Inter-Item Correlation = .36 • Humanist: α = .64, Inter-Item Correlation = .47 • Nationalist: α = .53, Inter-Item Correlation = .36

Selected References

Bargh, J. A., Chen, M., & Burrows, L. (1996). Automaticity of social behavior: Direct effects of trait construct and stereotype activation on action. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 71(2), 230-244.

Clark, R., Anderson, N. B., Clark, V. R., & Williams, D. R. (1999). Racism as a stressor for African Americans: A biopsychosocial model. American Psychologist, 54(10), 805-816.

Cohen, S., Kamarck, T., & Mermelstein, R. (1983). A global measure of perceived stress. Journal of Health and Social Behavior, 24(4), 385-396.

Harrell, S. P. (2000). A multidimensional conceptualization of racism-related stress: Implications for the well-being of people of color. American Journal of Orthopsychiatry, 70, 42-58.

Hong, Y., Morris, M. W., Chiu, C., & Benet-Martínez, V. (2000). Multicultural minds: A dynamic constructivist approach to culture and cognition. American Psychologist, 55(7), 709-720.

Kawakami, K., Dunn, E., Karmali, F., & Dovidio, J. F. (2009). Misreading affective and behavioral responses to racism. Science, 323(5911), 276-278.

McNair, D. M., Lorr, M., & Droppleman, L. F. (1971). Manual for the Profile of Mood States. San Diego, California: Educational and Industrial Testing Service..

Martin, P. P., Wout, D. A., Nguyen, H. X., Gonzalez, R. D., & Sellers, R. M. (2010). Investigating the psychometric properties of the Multidimensional Inventory of Black Identity in two samples: The development of the MIBI-S. Unpublished manuscript.

Sellers, R. M., Rowley, S. A. J., Chavous, T. M., Shelton, J. N., & Smith, M. A. (1997). Multidimensional inventory of black identity: A preliminary investigation of reliability and construct validity. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 73(4), 805-815.

Shacham, S. (1983). A shortened version of the profile of mood states. Journal of Personality Assessment, 47, 305-306.

Spielberger, C. D. (1979). Preliminary manual for the state-trait personality inventory (STPI). Preliminary Manual for the State-Trait Personality Inventory (STPI).

STUDY 2: Method

Participants • 42 African American undergraduates (33 females, 9 males) • Age: 18-23, Mean 19.71 (SD=1.22) • Family SES: Median reported SES was again ‘Middle Class’

Procedure • Two-session study:

• Session1: Online Questionnaire with demographics and variables of interest • Session 2: “Visual Immersion” Tasks & Racist Manipulation: Individuals engaged in the priming task and then witnessed exchange between a Black and White male confederate

• Black confederate bumps White confederate • White confederate engages in a staged phone call (random assignment)

• Neutral (No mention of race) • Subtle (“Hate it when they do that”) • Blatant (“Clumsy N-word”)

STUDY 1

Results

• Omnibus findings not significant; however, post-hoc analysis revealed significant and trend-level differences by condition (Table 1).

Table 1. Endorsement of Racial Ideology beliefs by priming condition

STUDY 2: Results • Utilized mixed-effect models, assessing emotional reactivity using change scores (compared to baseline) • Investigated main effect of prime, prime X discrimination interactions, and other higher order interactions • Found both main effects and interactions for both depression (Figure 2) and Total Mood Disturbance (TMD) (Figure 3) • Gender also emerged as a significant moderator of these relationships for both moods.

Figure 1 Sample Racial Ideology Icons for Study 1 Nationalist Assimilationist Humanist

Figure 2: Depressed Mood reactivity presented separately by racial ideology prime and type of discrimination experience

Figure 3: Total Mood Disturbance (TMD) reactivity presented separately by racial ideology prime and type of discrimination experience

Measures • Sociodemographic Questionnaire • Covariates: Racism-Related Stress, General Stress,

Trait Mood • Racial Identity • MIBI-Short Form (Martin et al., 2010) • Mood

• Transient – POMS-SF (Shacham, 1983) • Depression, Anger, Tension, Confusion, Fatigue,

Vigor, Total Mood Disturbance

Note: Means with different alpha subscripts were significantly different at the 0.05 level; Means with different numerical subscripts showed trend level differences.

Nationalist

(n=7)

Assimilationist

(n=11)

Humanist

(n=13)

Neutral

(n=11)

Endorsement of Humanist Ideology

4.86 4.00i 5.15ii 5.09

SD 1.89 1.67 1.49 1.14 Endorsement of Assimilationist Ideology

4.43 4.32 5.08 4.45

SD 2.11 1.68 1.17 1.35 Endorsement of Nationalist Ideology

2.43a 2.00 1.58b 2.00

SD 1.10 0.74 0.61 1.05

Participants primed with humanist ideology had greater increases in depressed mood in blatant condition (compared to neutral). Participants in neutral priming condition had greater depressed mood reactivity in blatant condition compared to either subtle or neutral conditions.

Across racism conditions, participants primed with assimilationist icons had greatest decreases in TMD. Participants in neutral priming category had higher TMD reactivity in blatant condition (compared to other two conditions). Those participants also had the highest TMD reactivity within the blatant condition

Consent

POMS-SF

(Baseline)

Visual Immersion #1

(Priming)

POMS

Discrimination Manipulation

POMS

Visual Immersion #2

(Distracter)

POMS

Debriefing

Procedural Flowchart

STUDY 2: Method