title: Racial identity and autonomic responses to racial discrimination.
abstract: Several studies identify racial identity-the significance and meaning that individuals attribute to race-as a mitigating factor in the association between racial discrimination and adjustment. In this study, we employed a visual imagery paradigm to examine whether racial identity would moderate autonomic responses to blatant and subtle racial discrimination analogues with Black and White perpetrators. We recruited 105 African American young adults from a public, southeastern university in the United States. The personal significance of race as well as personal feelings about African Americans and feelings about how others view African Americans moderated autonomic responses to the vignettes. We use polyvagal theory and a stress, appraisal, and coping framework to interpret our results with an eye toward elucidating the ways in which racial identity may inform individual differences in physiological responses to racial discrimination.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, North Carolina, USA.
authors.forename: Enrique W
authors.initials: EW
authors.lastname: Neblett
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA.
authors.forename: Steven O
authors.initials: SO
authors.lastname: Roberts
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D001741:Black or African American; D001341:Autonomic Nervous System; D002307:Cardiography, Impedance; D004562:Electrocardiography; D005260:Female; D006339:Heart Rate; D006801:Humans; D007092:Imagination; D008297:Male; D063505:Racism; D065809:Respiratory Sinus Arrhythmia; D012649:Self Concept; D012923:Social Class; D014481:United States; D044465:White People; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: African Americans; Autonomic nervous system; Racial discrimination; Racial identity