Black Lives and Black Research Matter: How our Collective Emotions Continue to Drive a Movement

Abstract

The author discusses (1) how the collective emotional experience of the Black community has propelled two parallel movements, Black Lives Matter and Black Research Matters, (2) the state of developmental science as it pertains to Black youth, and (3) suggestions for future research to integrate across fields and to evolve beyond Black pain to incorporate Black joy. The author suggests that the palpable anger collectively felt and expressed as a community has propelled a host of social‐political actions to dismantle anti‐Black systems of oppression, including within academia. She highlights that the scholarship on Black youth development has driven innovations in theory and methodology that have influenced the field of developmental science broadly and recommends future research areas for consideration.

Collective Emotion: A Framework for Experimental Research

“…An integrative multi-disciplinary approach to collective phenomena is likely to elucidate their universal bases, while clarifying the existence of cultural specificities. Finally, putting empirical predictions to the test is crucial if we aim to understand the role of collective emotion in group behaviours related to a broad range of societal topics, such as social movements (Dunbar, 2022), group conflicts (Bar-Tal et al, 2007), responses to terrorist attacks (Garcia & Rimé, 2019), pandemics (Metzler et al, 2023) and climate change (Fritsche & Masson, 2021).…”

“…Experimental studies could contrast dyads with groups of three and up to, e.g., six participants. Indeed, previous research indicated that human groups spontaneously split into subgroups of about three to four people in the context of conversations (Dunbar et al, 1995) and laughter (Dezecache & Dunbar, 2012). Based on cases studies of collective emotions (e.g., Sullivan & Day, 2019;Sullivan, 2018), future experimental research could also investigate the influence of other group features such as its structure (e.g., reciprocity and strength of connections, presence of an out-group) and the balance between homogeneity and heterogeneity across individuals (e.g., diversity in the motives of participants, leaderfollower relationships).…”

Dismantling systems of racism and oppression during adolescence: An agenda for anti‐racist research

“…Adolescents are more than the oppressions they face; they resist, have dreams, and have many other rich lived experiences across many developmental contexts. Indeed, many papers in the special series honored the humanity of Black youth and other youth of color by moving beyond a singular focus on the impacts of racism and oppression to documenting the complexity of whole personhood and celebrating strengths (Carey et al, 2022;Carter & Flewellen, 2022;Dunbar, 2022;López Hernández, 2022;Mathews et al, 2022;May et al, 2022;Rogers & Butler-Barnes, 2022). Additionally, anti-racist research can move beyond damage-centered research by conceptualizing research in ways that are action-oriented and community-informed to "engage diverse publics" (Eaton et al, 2021(Eaton et al, , p. 1214.…”