Year: 2013
Type: dissertation
Study design: Clinical Trial
Abstract: Research shows that minorities who suffer from chronic stressors such as discrimination, racism, and prejudice, may experience deleterious physiological effects. More importantly, these race specific stressors may contribute to health disparities between minorities and non-minorities in America. Furthermore, research has shown that when negative thoughts about one's own group are made salient in minority groups, performance on subsequent tasks can suffer. This phenomenon is known as stereotype threat (ST) and can be detrimental to mental and physical function. Recently, this work has been extended to examine the 'double minority effect', defined as "the psychological state created when two devalued identities interact to influence the individual in a way that is greater than the sum of the independent effects of those identities." This concept suggests that minority women may be susceptible to multiple sources of stereotype threat. Although many studies have examined ST in relation to performance on cognitive tasks, few have studied the possible physiological effects of ST in double minorities. The current study examines the possible relationship between ST and heart rate variability (HRV), a measure of emotional flexibility and overall cardiovascular health, in a sample of women. 58 undergraduate women (52% ethnic minority) were randomized in either a ST or control condition and underwent a baseline, task, and recovery period. HRV data was collected continuously throughout the study via an electrocardiogram (EKG). Lastly, participants answered both the perceived ethnic discrimination questionnaire (PEDQ) and the race (SCR) and gender (SCW) based stigma questionnaires; where these scales have been related to overall endorsement of ST. Firstly, we found that there was a difference in conditions between test performance such that individuals in the control condition outperformed participants in the ST condition (t (56) = .233, p>.05). Results revealed that White women scored higher on the SCR compared to minority women in general ;( t (55) = 5.041, p<.001). Additionally, minority women scored higher on the SCW than White women in the ST condition (t (25) =-2.654, p=.010) but not in the control condition (p>.05). Interestingly, in the ST condition only, results indicated that HRV at recovery was negatively correlated with scores on the SCR for women in the ST condition (r=-.348, p=.081). Conversely, HRV at recovery was positively associated with scores on the SCW (r= .395, p=.046) in ST condition only. These data assists in better understanding the ways in which gender and racial identities can influence one's mental and physical responses to stigma, and how this can be influenced by ST in both gender and ethnic minorities.
Author: Kinjal Pandya
Language: English
Subfield: Sociology and Political Science
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W136736538