The Social Context of Emotion: Effects of Ethnicity and Authority/Peer Status on the Emotional Reports of African American College Students

Abstract

The emotional impact of imagined and real interand intraethnic interactions with peers and authority figures was examined among African Americans. A total of 66 African American undergraduates rated their emotional responses to paragraphlong vignettes that varied the ethnicity (Black or White) and the peer/authority status of other actors in common inteipersonal situations within three emotional contexts (oy, anger, and neutral). Subjects encountered eitherAfi can American or White experimenters. Subjects reported more negative emotions in their imagined interactions with Whites and intensification of both positive and negative affect in imagined interactions with authority figures. The range of reported affect was more limited in the presence of White experimenters. Results are discussed in terms of contextual moderators of emotional responses among African Americans and their implications forfuture research.