Authors: Dorainne J. Green, Trinity A. Barnes, Neelamberi D. Klein
Categories: Article, Discrimination, Emotion regulation, Human behaviour, Motivation, Psychology, Self-control
Source: Scientific Reports
Authors: Dorainne J. Green, Trinity A. Barnes, Neelamberi D. Klein
Contending with discrimination can yield a cascade of negative psychological and physiological outcomes which adversely affect health. How individuals manage their emotions in response to discrimination can influence the extent of these negative health outcomes. Research finds, however, that Black and Latine individuals are more likely to use expressive suppression (vs. cognitive reappraisal) in response to discrimination*,* which is associated with adverse mental health outcomes. In the present research, we explored whether self-control (the ability to manage impulses and regulate thoughts, emotions, and behavior to achieve long-term goals) and impression management emotion-regulation goals (regulating emotions to shape others’ perceptions of one’s personality and skills) could help explain the differential use of suppression and reappraisal in response to discrimination. Across two cross-sectional studies, we found that Black and Latine participants’ everyday discrimination experiences were related to lower self-control and increased impression management emotion-regulation goals. Reduced self-control was, in turn, linked to less use of reappraisal, while impression management emotion-regulation goals were associated with both greater reappraisal and suppression use in response to discrimination. Reappraisal was also related to participants’ self-reported depressive symptoms. These findings contribute to our understanding of the factors that are associated with emotion regulation in response to discrimination.
Racial/ethnic discrimination refers to the unfair treatment of a person based on their perceived racial and/or ethnic background^1^. Discrimination is common—69.5% of Black Americans and 45% of Latine Americans reported experiencing racial/ethnic discrimination from “time to time” or more often^2^—and it is associated with adverse psychological and physiological outcomes among Black and Latine people. For instance, racial/ethnic discrimination increases the risk of anxiety and depression^3–6^ as well as physiological stress responses such as high blood pressure and increased cortisol secretion^5,6^. Given such outcomes and the prevalence of discrimination, it is important to investigate acute interventions that might mitigate the negative effects of discrimination on health. The present research examines whether the ways in which individuals manage their emotions influences such effects. It also investigates whether an individual’s ability to regulate their emotions and their motivation for such regulation, are associated with the use of cognitive reappraisal and expressive suppression in response to discrimination. This investigation of the antecedents and consequences of emotion regulation in response to discrimination will provide insights into the factors that shape emotion regulation use and the effects of these strategies on well-being.
Emotion regulation involves both controlled and automatic processes that individuals use to shape the experience and expression of emotions^7^. Most of the extant research on emotion regulation has focused on the strategies of cognitive reappraisal and expressive suppression. Reappraisal involves attempts to reduce the emotional impact of an event by changing one’s interpretation of a situation or emotional response to it^7,8^. Suppression, on the other hand, involves concealing one’s emotional expression and/or inhibiting the experience of an emotion or the thoughts triggered by an emotional event^7^. Generally, reappraisal is considered adaptive since it is typically associated with better psychological (e.g., less anxiety and depression) and physiological functioning (e.g., more adaptive cardiovascular responding)^8,9^. While suppression contributes to reduced emotional reactions in the short term, it is often considered a maladaptive emotion regulation strategy as studies have shown it is associated with poor psychological and physiological functioning in the long term^8,10^. Emerging research has started to examine the factors that shape the use of reappraisal and suppression in response to stressors. Two of the factors considered in the present research are self-control and emotion regulation goals.
Self-control refers to one’s ability to override impulses and control one’s thoughts, emotions, and behavior to pursue long-term goals^11,12^. Self-control and emotion regulation are considered interrelated but separable constructs^13,14^. Recent evidence points to the critical role of self-control in predicting reappraisal success^15,16^. To effectively implement reappraisal, an individual not only needs to reinterpret their emotions (i.e., control their emotions), but also intentionally reframe a situation which likely involves inhibiting automatic appraisals of an event (i.e., overriding impulses) and generating alternative reappraisals (i.e., controlling one’s thoughts) to alter the emotional impact of a situation^17^. In line with this reasoning, reappraisal is associated with cognitive control processes such as working memory (i.e., a type of short-term memory that allows you to hold and manipulate information) and response inhibition (i.e., a cognitive process that enables individuals to suppress impulsive behaviors or reactions)^17,18^. Although cognitive control processes and self-control are not synonymous, prior research has drawn on insights from research examining the relationship between cognitive control processes and reappraisal to examine whether self-control is similarly related to reappraisal^15,16^. This research has found, for instance, that high self-control is associated with greater reappraisal use and the successful use of reappraisal, defined by reduced negative emotions afterward^15,16^. Further, people with higher self-control tend to prefer adaptive emotion regulation strategies such as reappraisal over maladaptive emotion regulation strategies such as suppression^19^. Thus, research suggests that self-control is associated with greater use of reappraisal and may be related to less use of suppression when managing one’s emotions.
While an individual’s ability is an important factor in implementing an emotion regulation strategy, an individual must also view that strategy as being in line with their goals. Emotion regulation goals represent people’s motivation to regulate their emotions to achieve desired end states^20^. Specifically, when people notice a discrepancy between their current emotion state and a desired end state, they will activate emotion regulation goals to reduce this discrepancy^20,21^. These goals may include wanting to feel better (i.e., prohedonic goals), to feel worse (i.e., contrahedonic goals), to make others feel better (i.e., prosocial goals), to complete a task (i.e., performance goals), and to influence others’ impressions of one’s personality and skills (i.e., impression management goals^22^. Most relevant to the present research, the pursuit of impression management emotion-regulation goals is strongly associated with increased suppression use and, less strongly, with reduced reappraisal use^22,23^. In other words, people who are particularly mindful of others’ impressions when seeking to regulate their emotions are very likely to use suppression and somewhat unlikely to use reappraisal.
Past research has examined the consequences of reappraisal and suppression but has paid less attention to the factors that are associated with their use. In the current research we consider two of those factors—self-control and impression management emotion-regulation goals. Understanding how these factors are associated with the use of reappraisal and suppression in response to discrimination may provide an understanding of how to influence individuals’ emotion regulation choices. For instance, targeting people’s impression management emotion-regulation goals may reduce the likelihood of suppression use. Furthermore, understanding the factors that are associated with the use of reappraisal and suppression might help us to identify the conditions that make an emotion regulation strategy likely to be successful. For example, self-control not only predicts reappraisal frequency but also reappraisal success^15,16^. Thus, an individual who implements this strategy with reduced self-control might not reap the affective benefits of reappraisal. In the current work, we examine the relations between self-control, impression management emotion-regulation goals and reappraisal and suppression in response to racial/ethnic discrimination. We also examine the associations between reappraisal, suppression, and depressive symptoms.
Although previous research demonstrates that reappraisal (vs. suppression) is largely associated with positive outcomes when people are dealing with stressors outside the discrimination domain, there is evidence that discrimination is a context distinct from those that have been the focus of most research. First, discrimination experiences tend to be associated with less reappraisal use^24^. For instance, greater racial discrimination among African American colleges students was associated with less use of reappraisal^24^. Further, studies of the consequences of reappraisal in the context of discrimination show mixed results^26–29^. For example, Perez and Soto^29^ found that among Latine Americans who were highly aware of their racial/ethnic group’s oppression, reappraisal was negatively associated with psychological functioning. However, reappraisal was positively associated with psychological functioning among Latine Americans who were less aware of their racial/ethnic group’s oppression^29^.
The reduced use of and the mixed outcomes associated with reappraisal in response to discrimination could be a result of discrimination’s influence on self-control. As with other forms of psychosocial stressors^30–32^, experiences of discrimination are associated with impaired self-control^33–35^. Specifically, discrimination experiences are associated with reduced dispositional self-control (e.g., higher impulsivity, self-reported ability to control behavior) among both Black and Latine individuals^33,34,36^. Discrimination may contribute to impairments in self-control, as targets of discrimination are often vigilant to the possibility that they could be treated unfairly, thus taxing cognitive resources^37–39^. The negative effects of discrimination on self-control could be heightened for those who are highly aware of their racial/ethnic group’s oppression^29^. Such impairments might affect the efficacy of the reappraisal strategy in discrimination contexts because the ability to override impulses to control one’s emotions, thoughts, and behavior is needed to effectively implement reappraisal^17^. While previous research has demonstrated a relationship between discrimination experiences and self-control^33,34^, no research to date has examined how these impairments in self-control might be associated with reappraisal use in the context of discrimination. Thus, the first primary goal of the present research is to replicate prior work demonstrating that discrimination experiences are negatively related to self-control. We will also examine whether reduced self-control is associated with less reappraisal use in response to discrimination.
While discrimination experiences tend to be associated with less reappraisal use^24^, suppression is a common emotion regulation strategy used in response to discrimination^25^. The use of suppression in response to discrimination is associated with psychological distress and greater blood pressure reactivity^25,40,41^ which can contribute to racial/ethnic disparities in health and well-being^42^. Impression management emotion-regulation goals could explain the increased use of suppression in response to discrimination. Although no research has directly linked discrimination to impression management emotion-regulation goals, there is evidence to suggest that such goals are particularly salient for those contending with discrimination. For instance, to counter negative racial stereotypes, Black Americans are often socialized to engage in intense impression management, to work “twice as hard” as others, and seek to never make any mistakes^43,44^. Thus, Black people might engage in impression management to ensure that they are perceived positively and to avoid the risk of conforming to negative racial/ethnic stereotypes^43,45^. Similarly, Latine individuals are aware of pervasive negative stereotypic representations of their group in the media (e.g., “illegal immigrant,” “unintelligent”) and might engage in impression management (e.g., speaking English in the presence of White peers, working hard to prove people wrong in educational settings) to counter these negative stereotypes^46–48^. Consistent with this reasoning, experimental work found that Black and Latine participants primed to expect racial prejudice prior to an interaction with a White person, engaged in greater compensatory behaviors (i.e., they were more engaged) in the interaction than those primed to expect prejudice against the elderly^49^. These increased compensatory behaviors were attributed to the desire to leave a positive impression on a White interaction partner^49^. Such efforts to influence others’ impressions to counter discrimination and/or negative stereotypes likely contribute to increased suppression use in discriminatory contexts. While previous research has theorized on the impression management function of suppression in discrimination contexts^43,50^, prior work has not directly traced the paths from discrimination to impression management emotion-regulation goals to suppression. Therefore, the second primary goal of the present research is to investigate whether discrimination experiences are related to greater impression management emotion-regulation goals among Black and Latine individuals. We will also examine whether impression management emotion-regulation goals are associated with greater suppression use.
Taken together, discrimination is associated with less reappraisal use^24^ and when implemented in the context of discrimination it is not always associated with positive outcomes^29^. Suppression, on the other hand, is a common emotion regulation strategy in response to discrimination but tends to be associated with negative mental and physical health outcomes^25,40,41^. Given this quandary, it is important to identify factors that are associated with the use of reappraisal and suppression in response to discrimination to identify the conditions that might increase (or decrease) the use of certain emotion regulation strategies and ensure the efficacy of other emotion regulation strategies that are commonly tied to positive health outcomes. Self-control and impression management emotion-regulation goals are two such factors that might influence the use and efficacy of reappraisal and suppression in response to discrimination.
Prior research has demonstrated links between discrimination experiences and self-control^34^ and discrimination and impression management concerns^49,51^. Other research has established relationships between self-control and reappraisal^15,16,19^ and impression management emotion-regulation goals and suppression^22,23^ while other studies have examined the implications of suppression and reappraisal on mental health^25,29,41^. Yet, there’s no comprehensive research to date that has simultaneously considered how discrimination’s impact on self-control and impression management emotion-regulation goals might be associated with reappraisal and suppression use and subsequent mental health outcomes. The present research addresses this gap by examining self-control and impression management emotion-regulation goals as a mechanism linking discrimination to suppression and reappraisal use. The present work also investigates whether suppression and reappraisal in response to discrimination are associated with mental health.
The current research examines whether discrimination experiences are associated with the use of reappraisal and suppression in response to discrimination. It also investigates whether self-control and impression management emotion-regulation goals are related to reappraisal and suppression use. Finally, the study investigates the association of suppression and reappraisal with depressive symptoms. Based on previous research^4,5,24,25,34^, we predicted that discrimination experiences among Black and Latine participants would be associated with increased use of suppression, decreased use of reappraisal, reduced self-control, greater endorsement of impression management emotion-regulation goals, and increased depressive symptoms. We also hypothesized that impression management emotion-regulation goals would be related to greater suppression use but would not be related to reappraisal^22,23^. In addition, we hypothesized that self-control would be associated with greater reappraisal use^15,16^. Our hypothesis about the relationship between self-control and suppression was tentative given that much of the previous research has focused on the relationship between self-control and reappraisal. However, given prior research demonstrating that people with high self-control tend to prefer adaptive emotion regulation strategies such as reappraisal over maladaptive emotion regulation strategies such as suppression^19^, we hypothesized that self-control would be associated with less suppression use. Given the mixed findings on mental health associated with reappraisal and suppression in the context of discrimination, we explore the question as to how these strategies impact depressive symptoms.
The primary aim of Study 1 was to examine whether Black participants’ discrimination experiences was associated with their use of reappraisal and suppression in response to discrimination. We also investigated whether discrimination experiences would be related to reappraisal and suppression use via self-control and impression management emotion-regulation goals. Likewise, we examined the associations of reappraisal and suppression with depressive symptoms. We hypothesized that greater racial discrimination would be associated with reduced self-control and greater impression management emotion-regulation goals. We further predicted that both reduced self-control and greater impression management emotion-regulation goals would be associated with greater suppression use and less reappraisal use. Finally, we investigated the relationship between strategies and depressive symptoms.
Procedures and materials were approved by Indiana University’s Institutional Review Board under protocol number # 20958. The experiment was performed in accordance with relevant guidelines and regulations. We recruited participants via Prolific which is an online platform that connects researchers with participants for their studies^52,53^. It aims to facilitate fast, reliable, and high-quality data collection by offering a diverse pool of participants^52,53^. Researchers can easily recruit participants who meet specific criteria, while participants get paid fairly for their time and contributions. In Studies 1 & 2, we recruited participants who lived in the United States, who spoke English fluently, and who self-identified as Black/African American (Studies 1 & 2) or Latine (Study 2). We did not exclude participants based on specific mental health diagnoses or depression. To ensure data integrity, we included participants who had a Prolific study approval rate greater than 80% (i.e., they successfully completed previous studies without many issues) and who agreed to keep the study confidential. Participants who completed Study 1 were excluded from taking part in Study 2. Participants engaged in the study anonymously, and participant data was stored securely. Informed consent was obtained from all participants.
We recruited 502 Black participants through Prolific. We excluded 5 participants who did not provide their race/ethnicity. The final sample included 497 Black participants (Mage = 39.71 years, SDage = 12.31; 49.9% Women; 48.7% Men; 0.6% Non-Binary). Based on self-identification, 97.6% of the sample were Black and 2.4% Bi/Multiracial. Most of the participants (95.8%) indicated that they were born in the United States.
Participants completed a survey where they reported their discrimination experiences, their use of reappraisal and suppression in response to discrimination, their emotion regulation goals in response to discrimination, their self-control, their depression symptoms, and their demographic characteristics. Participants were debriefed, thanked, and compensated for their participation.
The Supplemental Materials provide the full text of all measures for all studies.
As in prior work^54^, participants’ frequency of discrimination experiences due to being Black was assessed using the Daily Life Experiences Subscale of the of the Racism and Life Experiences Scale^55^. Participants reported on their daily hassles because of their race/ethnicity in the past year via an 18-item scale. Specifically, we asked participants “In your day-to-day life, how often do any of the following things happen to you because you are Black?” Sample items include “being treated rudely or disrespectfully” or “insulted, called a name, or harassed” due to their race/ethnicity. Participants rated their agreement on the following 1 = never, 2 = less than once a year, 3 = a few times a year, 4 = a few times a month, 5 = at least once a week, 6 = almost every day. Participants’ responses were averaged to create a composite measure of discrimination frequency (α = 0.96). Higher scores indicated greater frequency of racial discrimination.
To assess the use of reappraisal and suppression, participants completed the Emotion Regulation Questionnaire-Short Form^56^. Participants reported on the likelihood of implementing reappraisal and suppression in response to discrimination via a 6-item scale. Specifically, we asked participants to report on how they typically managed their emotions in response to discrimination. Sample items included “After I experience discrimination, I try to hide how I was feeling from others (Suppression),” and “After I experience discrimination, I control my emotions by changing the way I think about the situation I’m in (Reappraisal).” Participants rated their agreement on a Likert Scale ranging from 1 = not at all to 7 = very much. We aggregated participants’ responses on the reappraisal subscale (α = 0.92) and the suppression subscale (α = 0.92) to form indices of reappraisal and suppression, respectively. Higher scores on each item indicated greater use of that particular emotion regulation strategy.
Self-control was assessed via a 7-item brief self-control scale^12^. Specifically, we asked participants to indicate how much each of the statements reflected how they typically are. Sample statements included “I am good at resisting temptation” and “People would say I have iron self-discipline.” Participants made their ratings on a scale ranging from 1 = not at all like me to 5 = very much like me. Participants’ ratings were averaged to form an index of self-control (α = 0.80). Higher scores indicate higher self-control.
Participants responded to one item (“I manage my emotions in response to discrimination to avoid being rejected by others”) adapted from the Emotion Regulation Goals Scale^22^ to assess impression management emotion-regulation goals. Participants made their responses on a Likert scale ranging from 1 = never to 7 = always.
To assess depressive symptoms, participants completed the Center for Epidemiologic Studies Short Depression Scale^57^. This is a 10-item scale, and we asked participants to indicate how often they experienced any of the following symptoms during the past week. Sample items included “I feel depressed” or “Everything I did was an effort.” Participants rated their agreement on a Likert scale ranging from 1 = rarely to 4 = all the time. We aggregated these ratings to form a composite of depressive symptoms (α = 0.79) with higher scores reflecting more depressive symptoms.
The descriptive statistics and zero-order correlations for all variables in Study 1 are provided in Supplemental Table S1. We next ran regression analyses to examine the effects of discrimination on reappraisal, suppression, self-control, impression management emotion-regulation goals, and depressive symptoms. To do this, we standardized all continuous predictor variables and we controlled for gender (Gender Dummy Code 0 = Male, 1 = Female, 0 = Other; Gender Dummy Code 0 = Male, 0 = Female, 1 = Other), participant age, and participant socioeconomic status (“What do you consider your socioeconomic status to be?” rated on a scale of 1 = working class, 2 = lower middle class, 3 = middle class, 4 = upper middle class, and 5 = upper class).
We then conducted several exploratory mediation models using the PROCESS macro in SPSS (Model 4)^58^ with bias-corrected 95% confidence intervals computed with 5000 bootstrap resamples to test our study hypotheses regarding the indirect effects of discrimination experiences on reappraisal via self-control; discrimination experiences on reappraisal via impression management emotion-regulation goals; discrimination experiences on suppression via self-control; and discrimination experiences on suppression via impression management emotion-regulation goals. We conducted four separate mediation models. Discrimination experiences was entered as the predictor, self-control and impression management emotion-regulation goals as mediators, and emotion regulation (i.e., reappraisal and suppression) were entered as outcomes.
Then, we conducted serial mediation analyses, which focused on examining the sequential relationships between discrimination experiences, self-control, impression management emotion-regulation goals, reappraisal, suppression, and depressive symptoms. Four separate models were conducted using the PROCESS macro in SPSS (Model 6)^58^, with bias-corrected 95% confidence intervals computed with 5000 bootstrap resamples. In each model, discrimination experiences was entered as the predictor variable, self-control or impression management emotion-regulation goals as the first mediator, emotion regulation as the second mediator, and depressive symptoms as the outcome variable. All models controlled for gender, age, and SES. The pattern of results is unchanged when conducting the analyses without covariates.
Given the cross-sectional nature of our data, we are unable to examine causal relationships among any of these variables nor are we able to assess the links between these variables over time. Nevertheless, we put forward and test the hypothesized relationships given prior work demonstrating links between discrimination and self-control^34^ and discrimination and impression management^49,51^. Further, research has established relationships between self-control and emotion regulation^15,16,19^ and impression management emotion-regulation goals and emotion regulation^22,23^. Finally, prior research has demonstrated links between suppression and reappraisal and mental health^8^.
Consistent with hypotheses, results revealed that discrimination experiences were related to increased suppression, β = 0.31, t(491) = 4.24, p < 0.001, lower self-control, β = −0.18, t(491) = −5.57, p < 0.001, increased impression management emotion-regulation goals, β = 0.44, t(491) = 5.75, p < 0.001, and increased depressive symptoms, β = 0.20, t(491) = 8.66, p < 0.001. In contrast, discrimination was not significant related to reappraisal use, β = −0.01, t(491) = −0.18, p = 0.855. See Supplemental Table S2 for a summary of all regression analyses.
Discrimination was associated with greater impression management emotion-regulation goals which was then related to greater reappraisal use (indirect effect = 0.05, SE = 0.02, 95% CI [0.02, 0.10]). Discrimination was also associated with reduced self-control which was then related to less reappraisal use (indirect effect = −0.07, SE = 0.02, 95% CI [−0.12, −0.03]); see Fig. 1.Fig. 1Study Simple mediation models depicting the associations between discrimination, self-control, impression management emotion-regulation goals, and reappraisal. Note. Path values represent unstandardized regression coefficients. The dashed lines represent a nonsignificant pathway. The value inside the parentheses indicates the total effect prior to the inclusion of the mediators. *p < .05. **p < .01. *** p < .001.
Discrimination was associated with greater impression management emotion-regulation goals which was then related to greater suppression use (indirect effect = 0.12, SE = 0.03, 95% CI [0.07, 0.18]). However, the indirect effect linking discrimination to suppression via self-control was not significant (indirect effect = 0.009, SE = 0.02, 95% CI [−0.03, 0.05]); see Fig. 2.Fig. 2Study Simple mediation models depicting the associations between discrimination, self-control, impression management emotion-regulation goals, and suppression. Note. Path values represent unstandardized regression coefficients. The dashed lines represent a nonsignificant pathway. The value inside the parentheses indicates the total effect prior to the inclusion of the mediators. *p < .05. **p < .01. *** p < .001.
Discrimination had a small but significant negative indirect effect on depressive symptoms (indirect effect = −0.003, SE = 0.002, 95% CI [−0.007, -0.001]) in a chain of serial mediation via impression management emotion-regulation goals and reappraisal. That is, discrimination experiences were associated with increased impression management emotion-regulation goals which was in turn related to greater reappraisal. Reappraisal, in turn, was associated with reduced depressive symptoms. Contrary to our expectations, there was not a detectable indirect effect linking discrimination experiences to depressive symptoms in a chain of serial mediation via self-control and reappraisal (indirect effect = 0.002, SE = 0.001, 95% CI [0.00, 0.01]). See Supplemental Tables S3 and S4 for full model details.
Contrary to our expectations, there was not a detectable indirect effect linking discrimination experiences to depressive symptoms in a chain of serial mediation via impression management emotion-regulation goals and suppression (indirect effect = 0.002, SE = 0.002, 95% CI [−0.002, 0.006]) or via self-control and suppression (indirect effect = 0.0002, SE = 0.0005, 95% CI [−0.001, 0.001]). See Supplemental Tables S5 and S6 for full model details.
In line with previous research^4,25^, Study 1’s findings revealed that discrimination experiences were associated with increased suppression, lower self-control, and increased depressive symptoms. The present findings also add to the literature on discrimination and emotion regulation by demonstrating a relationship between discrimination and impression management emotion-regulation goals. Surprisingly, we did not find a significant relationship between discrimination and reappraisal. Finally, and in support of our hypotheses, our analyses revealed that self-control and impression management emotion-regulation goals were related to reappraisal and suppression in response to discrimination. Finally, our mediation analyses revealed that the connection between impression management emotion-regulation goals and reappraisal was associated with reduced depressive symptoms.
Study 2, a preregistered study, sought to replicate and build on Study 1 in two primary ways. First, we tested our hypotheses in a sample of Black and Latine adults to demonstrate the generalizability of our findings to another racial/ethnic group. Study 2 also assessed participants’ impression management emotion-regulation goals using a multi-item measure to ensure that we more accurately and comprehensively captured participants’ goals. Based on Study 1’s findings, we predicted that discrimination experiences among Black and Latine participants would be associated with increased use of suppression, reduced self-control, greater endorsement of impression management emotion-regulation goals, and increased depressive symptoms. We also predicted that impression management emotion-regulation goals would be related to greater suppression and reappraisal use. We again explored associations between reappraisal, suppression, and depressive symptoms.
A power analysis was conducted with Cohen’s f = 0.103 at 0.05 alpha error probability with 95% power for a Linear multiple Fixed model, R^2^ deviation from zero^59^. The effect size is based on the average effect sizes associated with Study 1. The number of predictors was entered as 4 to account for discrimination experiences as our primary predictor along with our three control variables (age and 2 dummy coded variables for gender). However, we deviated from the pre-registration by also controlling for participant SES. We also deviated from the pre-registration by using a measure of trait instead of state self-control in our primary analyses. The original power analysis revealed an N-minimum of 186 participants. We recruited 410 participants through Prolific. We excluded 3 participants who did not provide their race/ethnicity and/or didn’t identify as Black or Latine. An additional 7 participants were excluded who failed attention checks. The final sample included 400 Black and Latine participants (Mage = 35.99 years, SDage = 11.79; 49.5% Women, 46.8% Men, 3% Non-Binary). Based on self-identification, 47.3% of the sample were Black, 33.3% Latine, 1.8% Black and Latine and 17.8% Bi/Multiracial. Bi/Multiracial participants indicated that they identified as Black or Latine along with another racial/ethnic identity. Most of the participants (93%) indicated that they were born in the United States.
Participants completed a survey where they reported their discrimination experiences, their use of reappraisal and suppression in response to discrimination, their emotion regulation goals in response to discrimination, their self-control, their depression symptoms, and their demographic characteristics. Participants were debriefed, thanked, and compensated for their participation.
The Supplemental Materials provide the full text of all measures for all studies.
Participants completed the same 18-item (α = 0.97) measure described in Study 1.
Participants completed the same 6-item measure described in Study 1 that assessed reappraisal (α = 0.89) and suppression subscale (α = 0.87).
Participants completed the same 7-item (α = 0.79) measure described in Study 1.
Participants reported their emotion regulation goals related to impression management via the 7-item Emotion Regulation Goals Scale^22^. Sample items include “I manage my emotions in response to discrimination to keep up appearances,” and “I manage my emotions in response to discrimination to avoid being rejected by others.” Participants made their responses on a Likert scale ranging from 1 = never to 7 = always. We averaged these ratings to form a composite of impression management emotion-regulation goals (α = 0.92). Higher scores indicate greater impression management emotion-regulation goals.
Participants completed the same 10-item (α = 0.79) measure described in Study 1.
The descriptive statistics and zero-order correlations for all variables in Study 2 are provided in Supplemental Table S7. For Study 2’s analyses, we followed the same analysis plan outlined in Study 1.
Consistent with hypotheses, results revealed that discrimination experiences were related to increased suppression, β = 0.23, t(394) = 3.08, p = 0.002, lower self-control, β = −0.09, t(394) = −2.47, p = 0.014, increased impression management emotion-regulation goals, β = 0.41, t(394) = 5.68, p < 0.001, and increased depressive symptoms, β = 0.19, t(394) = 7.57, p < 0.001. Unlike in Study 1, discrimination was significantly related to increased reappraisal use, β = 0.27, t(394) = 3.91, p < 0.001. See Supplemental Table S8 for a summary of all regression analyses.
Discrimination was associated with greater impression management emotion-regulation goals which was then related to greater reappraisal use (indirect effect = 0.08, SE = 0.03, 95% CI [0.03, 0.14]). Likewise, discrimination was associated with reduced self-control which was then related to less reappraisal use (indirect effect = −0.03, SE = 0.02, 95% CI [−0.07, −0.01]); see Fig. 3.Fig. 3Study Simple mediation models depicting the associations between discrimination, self-control, impression management emotion-regulation goals, and reappraisal. Note. Path values represent unstandardized regression coefficients. The dashed lines represent a nonsignificant pathway. The value inside the parentheses indicates the total effect prior to the inclusion of the mediators. *p < .05. **p < .01. *** p < .001.
Discrimination was associated with greater impression management emotion-regulation goals which was then related to greater suppression use (indirect effect = 0.13, SE = 0.04, 95% CI [0.06, 0.21]). As in Study 1, the indirect effect linking discrimination to suppression via self-control was not significant (indirect effect = −0.01, SE = 0.01, 95% CI [−0.03, 0.01]); see Fig. 4.Fig. 4Study Simple mediation models depicting the associations between discrimination, self-control, impression management emotion-regulation goals, and suppression. Note. Path values represent unstandardized regression coefficients. The dashed lines represent a nonsignificant pathway. The value inside the parentheses indicates the total effect prior to the inclusion of the mediators. *p < .05. **p < .01. *** p < .001.
Discrimination had a small but significant negative indirect effect on depressive symptoms (indirect effect = −0.005, SE = 0.002, 95% CI [−0.011, −0.001]) in a chain of serial mediation via impression management emotion-regulation goals and reappraisal. As in Study 1, there were not a detectable indirect effect linking discrimination experiences to depressive symptoms in a chain of serial mediation via self-control and reappraisal (indirect effect = 0.001, SE = 0.001, 95% CI [−0.001, 0.002]). See Tables S9 and S10 for full model details.
As in Study 1, there were no detectable indirect effects linking discrimination experiences to depressive symptoms in a chain of serial mediation via impression management and suppression (indirect effect = 0.003, SE = 0.003, 95% CI [−0.002, 0.008]) or self-control and suppression (indirect effect = −0.0002, SE = 0.0004, 95% CI [−0.001, 0.001]). See Tables S11 and S12 for full model details.
Study 2 replicated and extended Study 1’s results. Consistent with Study 1, discrimination experiences were associated with increased suppression, lower self-control, increased impression management emotion-regulation goals, and increased depressive symptoms. Surprisingly, we found that discrimination experiences were also related to increased reappraisal use. Our analyses also revealed that self-control was associated with reappraisal use while impression management emotion-regulation goals were associated with both reappraisal and suppression. Analyses again revealed that that the connection between impression management emotion-regulation goals and reappraisal was associated with reduced depressive symptoms.
Across two cross-sectional studies (n = 897) we found that among Black and Latine participants, discrimination experiences were associated with increased suppression, increased reappraisal (S2), lower self-control, increased impression management emotion-regulation goals, and increased depressive symptoms. In exploratory mediation models, we found that reduced self-control was related to less reappraisal use while impression management emotion-regulation goals were associated with greater reappraisal and suppression use. These initial findings suggest that reduced self-control due to discrimination may lead targets of discrimination to be less likely to implement reappraisal. This finding may explain why Black participants are less likely to use reappraisal in response to discrimination^24^. Further, we find that having impression management emotion-regulation goals in response to discrimination was associated with more suppression, which provides insights into why experiences of discrimination contributes to increased suppression use.
Unexpectedly, our results revealed that discrimination experiences were associated with reappraisal use (S2) and that impression management emotion-regulation goals were also associated with use of reappraisal. It is possible that when participants are regulating their emotions to influence others’ impressions in discriminatory contexts, they use emotion regulation strategies in their repertoire that will effectively downregulate the expression of negative emotions. The effective downregulation of negative emotions in response to discrimination, especially anger, may be of particular importance to Black and Latine individuals since emotional displays in response to discrimination are interpersonally costly^60,61^. Thus, in discriminatory contexts we might expect impression management emotion-regulation goals to shape the use of a wide array of emotion regulation strategies to effectively counter further discrimination and/or stereotyping.
The exploratory mediation analyses also revealed that the connection between impression management emotion-regulation goals and reappraisal and consequent mental health could contribute to reduced depressive symptoms. Surprisingly, suppression was not associated with depressive symptoms in mediation analyses. However, it is important to note that in our descriptive analyses, suppression is positive correlated with depressive symptoms in Study 1 (r = 0.12, p < 0.01) and in Study 2 (r = 0.13, p < 0.01), see Supplemental Tables S1 and S7. It is possible that suppression was not related to depressive symptoms in the mediation analyses due to the strong associations between discrimination and suppression and discrimination and depressive symptoms. Nevertheless, these findings are of theoretical and practical import as they shed light on the mechanisms linking discrimination to emotion regulation and mental health outcomes.
The present research adds to the literature demonstrating the cognitive and psychological costs of discrimination experiences^4,34^ and research examining the effects of reappraisal and suppression in response to discrimination on mental health^25,29^. This study is the first, to our knowledge, to directly examine factors that are associated with the use of reappraisal and suppression in response to discrimination. Therefore, the current work also contributes to the literature investigating links between self-control, impression management emotion-regulation goals, and emotion regulation^15,16,23^. However, it expands upon previous findings by investigating associations between self-control, impression management emotion-regulation goals, and emotion regulation in a novel domain – contending with discrimination experiences.
An investigation of the antecedents and consequences of emotion regulation in response to discrimination provides important insights into novel points of intervention. For instance, training in self-control could ensure greater use of reappraisal in response to discrimination, which could contribute to more positive mental health^62^. In their study, Cohen and Mor^63^ presented participants with negative pictures that were either typically preceded by a stimulus that recruits cognitive control or a stimulus that does not recruit cognitive control. They proposed that training participants to engage cognitive control before encountering emotional stimuli would enhance their reappraisal abilities. The findings showed that those in the training group were more likely to spontaneously reappraise and were more effective at it compared to the control group^63^. Implementing a similar training paradigm among Black and Latine individuals could bolster cognitive/and or self-control which might, in turn, increase their use of reappraisal in response to discrimination. Future work is needed to test this intriguing possibility.
The present research also complements recent theorizing that emotion regulation strategies like suppression serve a functional purpose in discrimination contexts^43^. Specifically Black and Latine individuals are often compelled to engaged in overcontrolled emotion regulation strategies to avoid rejection^60^, to facilitate smooth interracial interactions^49^, and even to survive interactions with the police^43^. We contribute to this literature by demonstrating direct links between discrimination, impression management emotion-regulation goals, and suppression in response to discrimination. Indeed, self-control might not have been related to suppression in the present research since it may be one of the primary emotion regulation strategies that Black and Latine individuals implement in response to discrimination^25^. As such, it may not require self-control to implement since it is a well-practiced emotion regulation strategy^64^. Although suppression tends to be associated with negative outcomes^8^, it is necessary to consider the reasons why people engage in this emotion regulation strategy in order to equip Black and Latine individuals with the tools needed to effectively cope with discrimination.
While the current research makes significant contributions, there are also limitations that present exciting avenues for future research. First, a primary limitation is the use of cross-sectional data which reduces our ability to make causal claims or to assess the links between our variables over time. Future research might use experimental methods or have multiple measures of the variables over time to build on our results.
Second, we did not examine the specific ways that suppression and reappraisal might be implemented in response to discrimination (i.e., emotion regulation tactics). For example, an individual can reappraise a situation by thinking about the positive or negative aspects along with the consequences of the situation^65^. In the context of discrimination, reappraising a discriminatory event can take the form of reflecting on insights or lessons learned from a discrimination experience or trying to reflect on the event from an objective, third person perspective^26,66^. It is possible, for instance, that participants in Studies 1 and 2 were engaging in different forms of reappraisal which would explain the unexpected association between discrimination and reappraisal in Study 2. Future research is needed to examine these possibilitie.
Third, the present research did not examine how ethnic/racial socialization and specific cultural values might shape the pattern of results presented in the current research. For instance, certain ethnic/racial socialization practices such as cultural socialization which involves cultivating pride about one’s heritage, culture, and belonging to one’s ethnic group may attenuate the negative effects of discrimination experiences on mental health^67,68^. Further, additional research is needed to examine how specific cultural values among Latine individuals such as familismo (i.e., an emphasis on family interdependence, support, and prioritizing family needs and decisions over individual ones)^69^ and aspects of marianismo which is a cultural gender role expectation for Latina women that includes self-silencing to maintain harmony moderate the impact of discrimination on emotion regulation and depressive symptoms^70^. For instance, familismo may buffer the negative effects of ethnic discrimination on depressive symptoms^69^ while marianismo might be associated with increased depressive symptoms among Latina women because of its associations with expressive suppression^41,70^. Additonal research is needed to delve into these potential outcomes.
A fourth limitation is that we only focused on two emotion regulation strategies—suppression and reappraisal. Future work, however, is needed to examine whether self-control and impression management emotion-regulation goals predict other emotion regulation strategies in response to discrimination such as rumination and distraction. Rumination and distraction are common emotion regulation strategies used in response to discrimination and are associated with psychological distress^25,71,72^. Understanding how self-control and impression management emotion-regulation goals shape the use of rumination and distraction in response to discrimination may provide insights into how to reduce the likelihood of rumination and distraction use, thus contributing to better mental health.
Finally, previous research suggests that the efficacy of reappraisal in the context of discrimination depends on whether individuals perceive societal discrimination against their group as pervasive^73^. The broader social context might influence the success of reappraisal in response to discrimination because the opportunities within the situation that allow for reinterpretation or reframing (i.e., reappraisal affordances) are reduced^66,74^. More concretely, discrimination experiences are challenging to reframe because it may be difficult to think about these experiences in different ways that lessen their negative impact. This difficulty in generating reappraisals might be particularly pronounced in contexts where discrimination is pervasive and could eventually contribute to rumination (e.g., repeatedly and passively dwelling on distressing symptoms and their potential causes and effects)^75^ if one fails to generate reappraisals^73^. Future research is needed to examine reappraisal affordances as another mechanism linking discrimination experiences to reduced reappraisal and contextual factors as possible moderators of the pattern of results observed in the present research.
In conclusion, everyday racial/ethnic discrimination is an unfortunate reality Black and Latine individuals face in the United States today. Experiences with discrimination are associated with a number of negative health outcomes. For this reason, it is crucial to identify emotion regulation strategies that might mitigate the negative effects of discrimination on consequent health. A more nuanced understanding of the factors that shape the use of different emotion regulation strategies and the consequences of such strategies is needed to determine what emotion regulation strategies might be functional and adaptive in the context of discrimination—albeit while working for a world in which racial/ethnic discrimination might, finally, disappear.
Supplementary Information.