Vicarious Discrimination Research Articles

Experienced, Anticipated, and Vicarious Discrimination: Consequences and Resilience for Minority Adolescents’ School Engagement

Racial discrimination presents challenges for children of color, particularly with regard to their schooling. Experiences of rejection and unfairness because of one’s race can prompt students to disengage from academics. The expansive discrimination literature finds that such experiences are commonplace. So much so that researchers have begun asking a new question: does one need to experience discrimination first-hand to feel its consequences? The current study continues in this direction by examining school attitudes as a potential outcome of anticipated and vicarious discrimination. Data are from black and Hispanic adolescents in the Project on Human Development in Chicago Neighborhoods. Results indicate that anticipated discrimination has the strongest and most direct associations with attitudes among African Americans, particularly when the police represent the discrimination source. However, parents can neutralize the impact of anticipated discrimination if they encourage reading at high levels. Experienced and vicarious discrimination exhibit weaker effects. Overall, the results confirm that the consequences of interpersonal discrimination do not stop with the intended victims. Instead, there are ripple effects that can negatively impact the worldviews of racial minority adolescents without them ever personally experiencing discrimination.

The double burden of racial discrimination in daily-life moments: Increases in negative emotions and depletion of psychosocial resources among emerging adult African Americans.

Objective: Racial discrimination is a common experience for African Americans, but no research has examined how discrimination reported in daily-life moments influences concurrent negative emotions and psychosocial resources. Method: Emerging adult African Americans (N = 54) reported hourly on momentary racial discrimination, negative emotions, and psychosocial resources across two days. Results: Controlling for past discrimination and trait emotion, momentary racial discrimination was associated with greater negative emotions and lower psychosocial resources (ps < .05). The relationship between momentary racial discrimination and negative emotions was stronger among individuals residing in areas with fewer African Americans (simple slope p < .0001). The relationship between momentary racial discrimination and psychosocial resources was stronger among individuals reporting greater past discrimination (simple slope p < .0001). Vicarious discrimination (exposure to discrimination experienced by another person) was associated with higher negative emotions (p < .01), but not with psychosocial resources. Conclusion: These results are the first to demonstrate that personal and vicarious racial discrimination are associated with negative emotions and lower coping resources in daily-life moments and that contextual factors modify these associations. Results refine our understanding of the immediate sequelae of discrimination in daily life and point to possible targets for ecological momentary interventions. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

Do trait psychological characteristics moderate sympathetic arousal to racial discrimination exposure in a natural setting?

Personality and psychological traits are known to influence how individuals react to and cope with stress, and thus, have downstream health and aging consequences. However, research considering psychological health traits as individual-level difference factors moderating the links been racism-related stress and health for racial and ethnic minorities in the United States is rare. Using intensive daily diaries and a wearable sensor that continuously recorded sympathetic nervous system arousal in a sample of racial and ethnic minority college students (80% African American, first-generation Black, or African; 20% Latinx), we linked arousal to racism-related experiences dynamically throughout the day as participants naturally went about their lives. Findings suggest that multiple traits are associated with increased arousal in real time when interpersonal discrimination is perceived, but that only anger and anxiety also predicted increased arousal during moments of rumination and reflection on race-related inequities. Vicarious discrimination exposure moments were also linked to suppressed arousal in general, but particularly for more anxious individuals. We use a stress appraisal and coping framework to elucidate the ways in which individual psychological differences may inform physiological responses to race-related stress. The biopsychosocial pathways by which cognitive appraisal and interpersonal race-related stress contribute to racial health disparities are also discussed.

Journal Digest: Riluzole, and Hyperarousal; Children, OCD, and Pandemic; Apathy, Dementia, and Older Adults; Cannabis, and Opioids; COVID, Xenophobia, and Mental Health

Journal Digest: Riluzole, and Hyperarousal; Children, OCD, and Pandemic; Apathy, Dementia, and Older Adults; Cannabis, and Opioids; COVID, Xenophobia, and Mental Health

Racial discrimination and socioemotional and sleep problems in a cross-sectional survey of Australian school students

ObjectiveTo determine the prevalence of direct and vicarious racial discrimination experiences from peer, school and societal sources, and examine associations between these experiences and socioemotional and sleep outcomes.MethodsData were analysed...

Does Discrimination Breed Mistrust? Examining the Role of Mediated and Non-Mediated Discrimination Experiences in Medical Mistrust

Medical mistrust is associated with a decreased likelihood of engaging in various health behaviors, including health utilization and preventive screening. Despite calls for research to address medical mistrust, few studies have explicitly delved into antecedents to medical mistrust. The current study a) examines the relationship between discrimination experiences and medical mistrust and b) experimentally tests the influence of mediated vicarious discrimination on reported levels of medical mistrust. Participants (N = 198) were randomly assigned to view news stories in one of four experimental conditions: no exposure, no discrimination control, implicit racial discrimination, and explicit racial discrimination. Results indicated prior personal and vicarious discrimination experiences were related to medical mistrust. Furthermore, exposure to mediated discrimination influenced medical mistrust in different ways for Black and White participants. Among Black participants, medical mistrust was significantly higher for those exposed to the implicit racial discrimination condition than the control condition. Marginal differences were found for White participants such that those exposed to both explicit and implicit racial discrimination conditions reported higher medical mistrust than those exposed to the control condition. Our findings are discussed in terms of the theoretical and practical implications for health communication scholars seeking to examine and influence health behaviors.

From my own flesh and blood: An exploratory examination of discrimination from family for Black/White Multiracial people

This qualitative study examined instances of racial discrimination from family members among 36 Black/White Multiracial individuals. Forms of discrimination included stereotyping, identity invalidation, racist comments, lack of acknowledgment, vicarious discrimination, and negativity. Participants responded to discrimination by distancing themselves from family members, resisting, and/or dismissing discrimination. Discriminatory experiences made race more salient for participants. Participants reported feeling hurt, alienated, and confused following discrimination. Implications of findings for social workers counseling Multiracial people and interracial families are discussed.

No experience required: Violent crime and anticipated, vicarious, and experienced racial discrimination

There is a growing body of evidence linking racial discrimination and juvenile crime, and a number of theories explain this relationship. In this study, we draw on one popular approach, Agnew's general strain theory, and extend prior research by moving from a focus on experienced discrimination to consider two other forms, anticipated and vicarious discrimination. Using data on black, white, and Hispanic youth, from the Project on Human Development in Chicago Neighborhoods (PHDCN), we find that experienced, anticipated, and to a lesser extent, vicarious discrimination, significantly predict violent crime independent of a set of neighborhood, parental, and individual level controls, including prior violent offending. Additional analyses on the specific contexts of discrimination reveal that violence is associated with the anticipation of police discrimination. The effects tend to be larger for African American than Hispanic youth, but the differences are not statistically significant. These findings support the thesis that, like other strains, discrimination may not have to be experienced directly to influence offending.

Effects over time of self-reported direct and vicarious racial discrimination on depressive symptoms and loneliness among Australian school students

BackgroundRacism and racial discrimination are increasingly acknowledged as a critical determinant of health and health inequalities. However, patterns and impacts of racial discrimination among children and adolescents remain under-investigated, including how different experiences of racial discrimination co-occur and influence health and development over time. This study examines associations between self-reported direct and vicarious racial discrimination experiences and loneliness and depressive symptoms over time among Australian school students.MethodsAcross seven schools, 142 students (54.2% female), age at T1 from 8 to 15 years old (M = 11.14, SD = 2.2), and from diverse racial/ethnic and migration backgrounds (37.3% born in English-speaking countries as were one or both parents) self-reported racial discrimination experiences (direct and vicarious) and mental health (depressive symptoms and loneliness) at baseline and 9 months later at follow up. A full cross-lagged panel design was modelled using MPLUS v.7 with all variables included at both time points.ResultsA cross-lagged effect of perceived direct racial discrimination on later depressive symptoms and on later loneliness was found. As expected, the effect of direct discrimination on both health outcomes was unidirectional as mental health did not reciprocally influence reported racism. There was no evidence that vicarious racial discrimination influenced either depressive symptoms or loneliness beyond the effect of direct racial discrimination.ConclusionsFindings suggest direct racial discrimination has a persistent effect on depressive symptoms and loneliness among school students over time. Future work to explore associations between direct and vicarious discrimination is required.

Online Racial Discrimination and Psychological Adjustment Among Adolescents

Purpose To examine associations between individual and vicarious racial discrimination via the Internet and psychological adjustment. Methods This study was a cross-sectional survey using a school-based sample of adolescents. Two hundred sixty-four high school students aged 14-18 completed the online survey. Results Twenty percent of whites, 29% of African Americans and 42% of multiracials/other experienced individual discrimination and approximately 71% of African Americans and whites and 67% of multiracials witnessed discrimination experienced by same-race and cross-race peers. Hierarchical linear regressions revealed that individual racial discrimination was significantly related to depression and anxiety over and above offline measures. Vicarious discrimination was not related to psychological adjustment measures. Conclusions Adolescents frequently experienced both individual and vicarious discrimination online. Consistent with offline studies, online racial discrimination was negatively associated with psychological functioning. This study highlights the need to address racial issues in Internet safety prevention.

Vicarious discrimination learning in retardates.

Vicarious discrimination learning in retardates.