Race-based Rejection Sensitivity Research Articles

COVID discrimination experience: Chinese Canadians' social identities moderate the effect of personal and group discrimination on well-being.

The coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic has amplified preexisting racism and xenophobia. In this study, we investigated (a) whether perceived personal and group discrimination make distinct contributions to Chinese Canadians' negative affect and concern that the heightened discrimination they experienced during the pandemic will continue after the pandemic; (b) whether Canadian and Chinese identities and social support moderate the effect of discrimination on this concern; and (c) whether race-based rejection sensitivity (RS) explains why each type of discrimination predicts negative affect and expectation of future discrimination. A sample of Chinese Canadian adults across Canadian provinces (N = 516; Mage = 42.74, 53.3% females) completed a questionnaire assessing personal and group discrimination, Chinese and Canadian identity, a short form of race-based RS, negative affect, and expectation of future discrimination. Personal and group discrimination were intercorrelated and positively associated with negative emotion and expectation of future discrimination. Chinese Canadians who identified more strongly as Chinese experienced a less adverse impact related to group discrimination. However, those who identified more (vs. less) strongly as Canadians were more likely to be impacted by personal discrimination. Finally, path analysis revealed that both personal and group discrimination were positively associated with RS, which in turn predicted an expectation that long-lasting racism would continue after the pandemic. Group and personal discrimination play different roles in Chinese Canadians' experiences during and expectations after the pandemic. Maintaining Chinese identity can be beneficial to Chinese Canadians, particularly in mitigating the negative effect of group discrimination during the pandemic. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

Race-Based Rejection Sensitivity and the Integrated Motivational Volitional Model of Suicide in a Sample of Black Women

Black women’s rates of suicide ideation have risen steadily, and this increase may be due to socioecological factors such as race-related stress. Experiences of race-related stress may be associated with feelings of defeat and entrapment, significant predictors of suicide ideation, as studies have identified that race-based rejection may be humiliating and cause feelings of defeat. Black women may experience race-based rejection sensitivity (RRS) because of historical inequities and discrimination. The current study examined relationships among defeat, entrapment, RRS, and suicide ideation in Black women. Mediation analysis indicated direct associations between defeat and suicide ideation and indirect associations by way of entrapment in Black women. Results indicated that RRS did not significantly moderate the relationship between defeat and entrapment, defeat and suicide ideation, or entrapment and suicide ideation. The current study advances research on mental health equity and suicide by adding to the scant work conducted on risk factors for suicide in Black women.

I Am Not A Virus: Status-Based Rejection Sensitivity and Sleep Among East Asian People in the United States During COVID-19

As COVID-19 spread in the United States, anti-East Asian bias increased. This article aimed to (1) show that thinking about COVID-19 heightened East Asian individuals’ anxious expectations of discrimination and (2) explore these expectations’ health correlates. Specifically, the paper focused on COVID-19-triggered race-based rejection sensitivity, defined as (1) East Asian individuals’ expectations of rejection due to the stereotype that they spread the virus and (2) high levels of anxiety about this possibility. Study 1 (N = 412) showed that reminders of COVID-19 increased COVID-19-triggered race-based rejection sensitivity among Chinese citizens living in the United States and East Asian Americans, but not Americans of other races. Study 2 (N = 473) demonstrated that East Asian people who habitually focused on COVID-19 experienced greater COVID-19-triggered race-based rejection sensitivity and, in turn, greater sleep difficulties. Thus, societal-level shifts that target minoritized groups may increase minoritized group members’ concerns about discrimination in ways that undermine their health.

Can cultural identity clarity protect the well-being of Latino/a Canadians from the negative impact of race-based rejection sensitivity?

The aim of the present study was to examine the understudied immigration and acculturation experience of the growing Latino/a community in Canada. Specifically, we explored the impact of race-based rejection sensitivity on well-being, and whether cultural identity clarity could help curtail any negative effects. Hypothesis 1 was that race-based rejection sensitivity would be negatively associated with well-being. Hypothesis 2 was that cultural identity clarity would moderate the association between race-based rejection sensitivity and well-being such that Latino/a immigrants lower in cultural identity clarity would experience poorer well-being than those higher in cultural identity clarity. A community sample of Latino/a immigrants (N = 136; Mage = 38.21; 51.47% female) completed a survey including measures of race-based rejection sensitivity, cultural identity clarity, bicultural stress, self-esteem, and life satisfaction. Correlation and regression analyses revealed that race-based rejection sensitivity was negatively associated with well-being. Additionally, high cultural identity clarity attenuated the negative association between race-based rejection sensitivity and well-being. Results of the present study suggest maintaining clarity over their heritage cultures postimmigration can be beneficial to Latino/a immigrants in Canada, in particular when they are sensitive to cues of racial discrimination. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).

Expectations of Racism and Carotid Intima-Media Thickness in African American Women.

Several researchers have argued that racism-related stressors play an important role in adverse cardiovascular outcomes among African American women. However, studies have primarily focused on experiences of racism; thus, the role of expectations of racism is insufficiently understood. The current proof-of-concept study was designed to examine associations among expectations of racism, self-reported experiences of racism, and carotid intima-media thickness (IMT), a marker of cardiovascular risk, in African American women. Participants were 52 healthy African American women, aged 30 to 50 years (M (SD) = 40.8 (4.3)). Expectations of racism were assessed with a modified version of the Race-Based Rejection Sensitivity Questionnaire, experiences of racism were assessed with the Schedule of Racist Events, and carotid IMT was measured using B-mode ultrasound. In linear regression analyses adjusted for age, expectations of racism were associated with higher levels of carotid IMT (b = .04, SE = .014, p = .013), after adjusting for experiences of racism. Findings remained significant after additional adjustments for cardiovascular risk factors (b = .03, SE = .014, p = .032). Associations were not confounded by additional stressors, hostility, or negative affect (depressive symptoms). Independent of actual reports of racism, "expectations" of racism may be associated with increased cardiovascular risk in African American women. In addition, although experiences of discrimination were associated with depressive symptoms, expectations of racism were not, suggesting that other negative emotions likely play a role. Future studies are needed to replicate these results in larger samples and to explore the psychological and physiological pathways through which expectations of racism might affect cardiovascular disease risk across a range of populations.

Race-Based Rejection Sensitivity and Racial Identity Predict African American Students’ Reactions to the Fatal Shooting of Other African Americans: Personal Threat and Identification with Shooting Victims as Mediators

ABSTRACTAfrican American university students (n = 365) read a description of the fatal shooting of African Americans in incidents that most participants perceived as involving racial bias. Then they completed measures about their distress concerning these incidents, identification with the shooting victims, and feeling personally threatened by the shootings. Higher race-based rejection sensitivity and several components of racial identity (higher racial centrality, higher private regard, and lower public regard) predicted more distress about the shootings via increased feelings of personal threat. Only higher racial centrality was related to more distress based on how much participants identified with the shooting victims. The results document how indirect experiences with race-related shootings may elicit distress about these incidents.

Individual differences in the impact of vicarious racism: African American students react to the George Zimmerman trial.

This research focused on how race-based rejection sensitivity (RS-Race) and components of racial identity intensify negative psychological reactions to an incident of vicarious racism. We examined how these individual difference variables directly and/or indirectly predicted African American students' reactions to the trial of George Zimmerman in the killing of the African American teenager, Trayvon Martin. In Study 1, 471 African American students completed measures of RS-Race, thought intrusions about the Zimmerman trial, and outcome variables (negative affect about the Zimmerman trial and forgiveness for Mr. Zimmerman). In Study 2, 304 African American students completed measures of racial identity (centrality, private regard, and public regard), thought intrusions about the Zimmerman trial, negative affect, and forgiveness. In Study 1, higher RS-Race was either directly and/or indirectly (via thought intrusions) related to more negative affect and lower forgiveness. In Study 2, high racial centrality and low public regard either directly and/or indirectly (via thought intrusions) predicted more negative affect and lower forgiveness. RS-Race and specific components of racial identity are likely to sensitize African Americans to incidents of racism that happen to other African Americans, leading to negative psychological reactions when these events occur. (PsycINFO Database Record

Introducing a New Assessment Tool for Measuring Ethnic-Racial Identity: The Cross Ethnic-Racial Identity Scale-Adult (CERIS-A).

In this article, we examined the psychometric properties of scores on a new instrument, the Cross Ethnic-Racial Identity Scale-Adult (CERIS-A) for use across different ethnic and racial groups. The CERIS-A measures seven ethnic-racial identity attitudes-assimilation, miseducation, self-hatred, anti-dominant, ethnocentricity, multiculturalist inclusive, and ethnic-racial salience. Participants consisted of 803 adults aged 18 to 76, including African Americans (19.3%), Asian Americans (17.6%), European Americans (37.0%), and Latino/as (17.8%). Analyses indicated that CERIS-A scores were reliable, and configural, metric, and scalar invariance were supported for the seven factors across gender; however, Miseducation, Ethnic-Racial Salience, and Ethnocentricity scores achieved only metric invariance across ethnic-racial groups. Self-Hatred, Ethnic-Racial Salience, Anti-Dominant, and Ethnocentricity scores were significantly and meaningfully related to race-based rejection sensitivity scores, providing evidence of convergent validity. We concluded that the CERIS-A is a potentially useful instrument for examining ethnic-racial identity attitudes across multiple racial/ethnic subgroups in the United States.

Race-based rejection sensitivity partially accounts for the relationship between racial discrimination and distressing attenuated positive psychotic symptoms.

Self-reported experiences of racial discrimination have been associated with a continuum of psychotic experiences in racial and ethnic minority populations; however, the underlying mechanisms of this relationship are not yet clear. Race-based rejection sensitivity (RS-race) has been associated with thought intrusions about being the target of racial discrimination; therefore, the present study aimed to determine whether RS-race accounts for the relationship between racial discrimination and psychotic-like experiences in racial and ethnic minority populations. A sample of 644 young adults from a US urban, predominantly immigrant, and racial and ethnic minority population was administered a self-report inventory of psychosis risk (i.e. Prodromal Questionnaire (PQ) ), providing a dimensional assessment of the total number of attenuated positive psychotic symptoms experienced as distressing (APPS-distress). Participants also completed the Experiences of Discrimination Questionnaire and the Rejection Sensitivity Questionnaire-Race. Hierarchical linear regression analyses revealed that RS-race and racial discrimination were both significantly related to higher levels of APPS-distress. Bootstrapping analyses of indirect effects indicated that RS-race partially accounted for the relationship between racial discrimination and APPS-distress. Although the cross-sectional nature of the data limits conclusions about causal inference, our findings do suggest that racial discrimination and RS-race may both be important for understanding risk for distress in the psychotic spectrum among racial and ethnic minority young adults. Some individuals who report racial discrimination may be more vulnerable to APPS-distress in part because they are anxiously anticipating being racially slighted, and this should be explored further in prospective clinical high-risk studies.

Stress and coping in interracial contexts: The influence of race-based rejection sensitivity and cross-group friendship in daily experiences of health.

We examined the interplay of psychosocial risk and protective factors in daily experiences of health. In Study 1, the tendency to anxiously expect rejection from racial outgroup members, termed race-based rejection sensitivity (RS-race), was cross-sectionally related to greater stress-symptoms among Black adults who reported fewer cross-race friends but not among participants who had more cross-race friends. In Study 2, we experimentally manipulated the development of a same- versus cross-race friendship among Latino/a-White dyads prior to collecting daily experiences of stress-symptoms using a diary methodology. While RS-race predicted more psychosomatic symptoms in the same-race friendship condition, RS-race was unrelated to symptomatology among participants who made a cross-race friend. These findings suggest that experiences of intergroup stress can spill over into everyday life in the absence of positive contact, but cross-race friendships may be a resource that mitigates the expression of interracial stress.

African American Students' Responses to Racial Discrimination: How Race-Based Rejection Sensitivity and Social Constraints are Related to Psychological Reactions

We examined the association between two individual differences (race-based rejection sensitivity and social constraints in talking about racism with family, friends, and/or intimate partners) and psychological reactions to an incident of racial discrimination. Participants were 551 African American undergraduates from either a predominantly white university (PWU) or a historically black university (HBU). Race-based rejection sensitivity (RS-Race) predicted higher negative affect and lower forgiveness for the perpetrator. Social constraints predicted higher negative affect and (marginally) lower forgiveness. There was also an interaction between social constraints and RS-Race: RS-Race was strongly negatively related to positive affect and forgiveness among participants with low social constraints but essentially unrelated among those with high social constraints. Thought intrusions (that might prolong the memory of the prejudicial event) also mediated the effects of RS-Race and social constraints on negati...

Group-Value Ambiguity

The authors applied insights from the group-value theory of procedural justice to investigate minority students' disengagement of self-esteem from academic outcomes. African American college students completed the race-based rejection sensitivity (RS-race) questionnaire. The students were asked to write a position essay on a current topic. They were randomly assigned to complete a demographic form in which they disclosed or did not disclose their race and to receive negative or positive feedback. When race was undisclosed, performance self-esteem was greater after positive feedback relative to negative feedback, regardless of RS-race. When race was disclosed, feedback valence affected self-esteem only among those lower in RS-race. Following positive feedback, these participants showed the greatest gains in self-esteem. Consistent with group-value theory, changes in self-esteem were explained by participants' concerns and emotions around fairness, respect, and acceptance. The authors discuss implications for minority student achievement.

Personality and Racial/Ethnic Relations: A Perspective From Cognitive–Affective Personality System (CAPS) Theory

The five articles in this special section examine personality and racial/ethnic relations from the perspective of Mischel and Shoda's Cognitive-Affective Personality System (CAPS) Theory. In this introductory piece, we first provide a primer on CAPS theory. In particular, we try to highlight the role that context plays in the construction and manifestation of personality as well as the dynamic ways that people interpret and react to input from their environment. We then review research on race-based rejection sensitivity as a programmatic illustration of the role expectancies play in racial/ethnic relations. Finally, we summarize and tie together the articles that comprise this section via a set of emergent themes that are common to the present contributions.

Can Cross-Group Friendships Influence Minority Students' Well-Being at Historically White Universities?

Past research has demonstrated the negative impact of race-based rejection sensitivity (RS-race) on institutional belonging and satisfaction among minority-group students in predominantly White universities. Given research documenting the benefits of cross-group friendship for intergroup attitudes, we tested whether friendships with majority-group peers would attenuate the effects of RS-race within these contexts. In a longitudinal study of African American students (Study 1), cross-group friendships with majority-group peers buffered students high in RS-race from lack of belonging and dissatisfaction at their university. An experimental intervention (Study 2) that induced cross-group friendship replicated the findings and established their specificity for minority-group students. We discuss implications for efforts toward diversifying educational settings.

Distinguishing institutional identification from academic goal pursuit: Interactive effects of ethnic identification and race-based rejection sensitivity.

We examined the interactive effects of ethnic identification (EI) and race-based rejection sensitivity (RS-race) on institutional outcomes among African American college students. We distinguished between effects on institutional identification on the one hand and academic goal pursuit (e.g., staying in school, grade point average [GPA]) on the other. Supporting the utility of this distinction, we found that EI and RS-race interacted to predict these outcomes differently. Higher EI in combination with higher RS-race predicted reduced identification with the institution (Studies 1, 2, and 3a). This combination, however, did not lead to decreases in GPA over time. Moreover, EI was positively related to intentions to stay in school as well as to GPA increases among those lower in RS-race (Studies 1 and 3b). Implications for understanding identity negotiation vis-à-vis performance in institutional settings are discussed.

With a little help from my cross-group friend: Reducing anxiety in intergroup contexts through cross-group friendship.

The authors induced cross-group friendship between Latinos/as and Whites to test the effects of cross-group friendship on anxiety in intergroup contexts. Cross-group friendship led to decreases in cortisol reactivity (a hormonal correlate of stress; W. R. Lovallo & T. L. Thomas, 2000) over 3 friendship meetings among participants high in race-based rejection sensitivity (R. Mendoza-Denton, G. Downey, V. J. Purdie, A. Davis, & J. Pietrzak, 2002) and participants high in implicit prejudice (A. G. Greenwald, B. A. Nosek, & M. R. Banaji, 2003). Cross-group partners' prior intergroup contact moderated the relationship between race-based rejection sensitivity and cortisol reactivity. Following the manipulation, participants kept daily diaries of their experiences in an ethnically diverse setting. Implicitly prejudiced participants initiated more intergroup interactions during the diary period after making a cross-group friend. Participants who had made a cross-group friend reported lower anxious mood during the diary period, which compensated for greater anxious mood among participants high in race-based rejection sensitivity. These findings provide experimental evidence that cross-group friendship is beneficial for people who are likely to experience anxiety in intergroup contexts.

Sensitivity to status-based rejection: implications for African American students' college experience.

The authors proposed a process model whereby experiences of rejection based on membership in a devalued group can lead people to anxiously expect, readily perceive, and intensely react to status-based rejection. To test the model, the authors focused on race-based rejection sensitivity (RS-race) among African Americans. Following the development and validation of the RS-Race Questionnaire (Studies 1 and 2), the authors tested the utility of the model for understanding African American students' experiences at a predominantly White university (Study 3). Students high in RS-race experienced greater discomfort during the college transition, less trust in the university, and relative declines in grades over a 2- to 3-year period. Positive race-related experiences, however, increased feelings of belonging at the institution among students high in RS-race.