Brannon Tiffany N
Department of Psychology, University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), 1285 Franz Hall, Los Angeles, CA 90095, USA.
PNAS Nexus. 2023 Sep 20;2(10):pgad309. doi: 10.1093/pnasnexus/pgad309. eCollection 2023 Oct.
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 and anxiety). Notably, racism can spark antiracist engagement-support for addressing systemic racism. For example, Floyd's murder sparked unprecedented antiracist engagement, including heightened Black Lives Matter (BLM) support and protest participation. The present research explored the potential that antiracist engagement can heal: be positively associated with well-being. First, study 1 found that state-level BLM engagement (i.e. protest numbers, antiracism 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, = 161,359) and Whites ( = 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 antiracist engagement content (e.g. referenced efforts to address systemic racism) and the happiness measure. Finally, study 3 examined antiracism protest data/information-seeking and a sample of BLM tweets ( = 100,321) posted between April and July 2020. Conceptually replicating studies 1-2, study 3 found that antiracist 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 antiracist engagement can be associated with benefits for well-being across racial/ethnic groups.
种族主义会对心理健康产生负面影响从而造成伤害。例如，与种族主义相关的大规模事件，如2020年5月警察参与谋杀乔治·弗洛伊德事件，已被证明与不良心理健康指标（如抑郁和焦虑）有关。值得注意的是，种族主义能够激发反种族主义参与——即支持解决系统性种族主义问题。例如，弗洛伊德被谋杀引发了前所未有的反种族主义参与，包括对“黑人的命也是命”运动（BLM）的支持增加以及抗议活动参与度提高。本研究探讨了反种族主义参与可能具有的治愈作用：即与幸福感呈正相关。首先，研究1发现，在弗洛伊德死后的8周内，州一级的“黑人的命也是命”运动参与度（即抗议人数、在谷歌/YouTube上搜索反种族主义信息的情况）与积极的心理健康指标相关（即抑郁和焦虑程度降低、自我评估健康状况提高）。该研究在少数族裔（如黑人/非裔美国人、西班牙裔，= 161,359）和白人（= 516,002）中均发现了这些影响。然后，研究2考察了社交媒体数据（即推文）与情绪幸福感。它使用了一项从2019年至2021年的144,649,285,571条推文中得出的幸福指数衡量标准。研究发现，带有反种族主义参与内容（如提及解决系统性种族主义问题的努力）的推文数量与幸福指数之间存在正相关。最后，研究3考察了反种族主义抗议数据/信息搜索情况以及2020年4月至7月期间发布的一组“黑人的命也是命”运动推文（= 100,321）。在概念上重复研究1至2的结果，研究3发现，相对于负面情绪/情感（如焦虑），反种族主义参与与更积极的情绪/情感（如幸福）相关。与理论和政策相关的是，观察到的结果表明，反种族主义参与可能与跨种族/族裔群体的幸福感提升相关。
