No abstract

Since 2012, the United States has seen a renewed focus on police killings of racial and ethnic minorities, as well as protest against such violence. Moreover, recent polling data show an intensification of long-standing differences in Black and White Americans' attitudes toward police violence and protest. Here, we review recent polling, as well as our own series of experiments, to elucidate racial divides in attention, attitudes, and reactions to police violence and protest against it (e.g., Black Lives Matter). In addition, we report linguistic analyses of descriptions (N = 195) of protest images, showing that Black participants better understand the causes of these protests (d = .30) and view them more positively (d = .38) than Whites. If we wish for consensus on how to address police violence and protest against it, we must understand how and why the sociopolitical reality of race leads to divergent views of these issues.

As race acts as a social frame of reference, it should guide individual's appraisal of visual representations of social events and issues. Thus, grounded in Scherer's (2009) model of appraisal as a sequential process, in 2 experiments (N ϭ 133, 166) we used early event-related potentials (ERPs) of brain activity (the N100, P200, P300) to examine Black and White participants' appraisals of the novelty of images of police force against Black (and White) targets, as well as of Black-led protest. We used a later ERP (the late positive potential, LPP) as well as blood pressure to assess their appraisal of motivational relevance, and self-reported affect and emotion to assess conscious experience. White participants' early ERPs suggested that they appraised the images as more novel than did Black participants. Nevertheless, Black participants' later (LPP) ERP, and blood pressure, suggested that they appraised the images as more motivationally relevant. Consistent with this, Black participants expressed more attentiveness, anger, and empowerment at the images, whereas White participants expressed more surprise. A mediation model in Experiment 2 showed that self-reported familiarity with past racial violence, as well as surprise and attentiveness to the images, explained the difference between Black and White participants' appraisals of motivational relevance (i.e., the LPP). We discuss implications for appraisal theory, stress and coping, and societally situated cognition and affect.

Large health disparities exist between stigmatized and nonstigmatized groups. In addition to experiencing and anticipating greater discrimination, members of stigmatized groups also tend to demonstrate greater ruminative tendencies in response, which may lead to these poor health outcomes. Even among stigmatized groups, differences in the visibility of stigma lead to different mechanisms through which stigma takes its toll. Previous work has primarily focused on the impact of belonging to a single marginalized group; however, people often belong to multiple marginalized groups, and this likely affects both their health outcomes and their anticipation of stigma. In the current study, we focused on individuals with concealable stigmatized identities (CSIs)—socially stigmatized identities that are not immediately apparent to others—and created a measure of concealable marginalization that captures multiple group memberships. We predicted that those possessing a greater number of CSIs would anticipate more stigma from others, and, in turn, ruminate more about the stigma, which would negatively impact the health. Surveying N = 288 adults with CSIs, we found that possessing a greater number of marginalized concealable identities predicted worse self‐reported physical quality of life. These relationships were partially mediated by greater anticipated stigma and brooding rumination in regard to their CSI. This work illuminates a more complete picture of how living with CSIs can take its toll on health.

As the prevalence of overweight and obesity have risen over the past few decades, so have weight control attempts. Research has shown, however, that intentional weight loss results are often short-lived, with people regaining the weight over time. This can lead to weight cycling-losing and gaining weight repeatedly. Previous research, mostly done over two decades ago, concluded there was no relationship between weight cycling and psychological health. The goal of the current paper was to reexamine the relationship between weight cycling and depressive symptoms in a national sample of American adults (N = 2702; 50.7% female; mean age = 44.8 years). If, as hypothesized, there is a relationship between more frequent weight cycling and depressive symptoms, then internalized weight stigma will be examined as a potential mediator of the relationship. Results of a cross-sectional survey showed that 74.6% of adults report they have intentionally tried to lose weight. Amongst those who have tried to lose to weight, the average number of weight cycles over the lifetime was 7.82 cycles. Simultaneous regression showed that greater weight cycling was related to greater reported depressive symptoms (β = .15, p < .001), controlling for age, gender, education, income, and body mass index. Internalized weight stigma was a partial mediator of this relationship. Discussion focuses on the potential implications for weight cycling and mental health.