Racism hurts, can antiracism heal?: Positive mental health correlates of antiracist engagement

Abstract

Racism can hurt by negatively impacting mental health. For instance, large-scale events tied to racism like the May 2020 police-involved murder of George Floyd have been linked to poor mental health indicators (e.g., depression, anxiety). Notably, racism can spark anti-racist engagement— support for addressing systemic racism. For example, Floyd’s murder sparked unprecedented anti-racist engagement including heightened Black Lives Matter (BLM) support and protest participation. The present research explored the potential that anti-racist engagement can heal: be positively associated with well-being. First, Study 1 found that state-level BLM engagement (i.e., protest numbers, anti-racism information-seeking on Google/YouTube) during an 8-week period following Floyd’s death was associated with positive mental health indicators (i.e., lower depression and anxiety, higher self-rated health). It found these effects among racial/ethnic minorities (e.g., Black/African Americans, Hispanics, N=161,359) and Whites (N=516,002). Then, Study 2 examined social media data (i.e., tweets) and emotional well-being. It used a measure of happiness indexed across 144,649,285,571 tweets from 2019 through 2021. It found a positive correlation between the volume of tweets with anti-racist engagement content (e.g., referenced efforts to address systemic racism) and the happiness measure. Finally, Study 3 examined anti-racism protest data/information-seeking and a sample of BLM tweets (N=100,321) posted between April and July 2020. Conceptually replicating Studies 1-2, Study 3 found that anti-racist engagement was associated with greater positive emotion/sentiment (e.g., happiness) relative to negative emotion/sentiment (e.g., anxiety). Relevant to theory and policy, the observed results suggest that anti-racist engagement can be associated with benefits for well-being across racial/ethnic groups.