Does exposure to race-related stress lead to attention biases? Examining the moderating roles of anxiety and racial identity among Black adults.

Abstract

Objective: Racism plays a deleterious role in Black Americans' mental health, yet little is known about the mechanisms through which racism may confer risk to mental health outcomes. One hypothesized yet untested mechanism through which racism may lead to negative mental health is increased attention bias to threat. Even less is known about individual difference factors that may exacerbate or ameliorate racism's effects, such as anxiety or racial identity.

Method: To address this gap in the literature, 214 Black adults were recruited online for an experimental study. Participants were randomly assigned to one (out of two) stress conditions: experimental, where they reflected on a racism experience (n = 102), or control, where they reflected on a nonracism stressor (n = 112). They also completed measures of general anxiety and racial centrality. Attention bias to threat was assessed using a dot-probe task, which compares reaction time to threat (i.e., angry) versus neutral faces.

Results: Although there was no overarching effect of racism exposure on general or Black-specific attention bias, there was a significant effect of racism on attention bias toward White angry faces such that those in the racism condition demonstrated lower bias than those in the control stress condition (t = -2.06, p = .04). Importantly, the effect of the racism manipulation depended on participants' level of anxiety and racial centrality.

Conclusion: These unexpected results suggest that exposure to racism may lead to an avoidant attentional bias away from White threatening faces but that this process may be contingent on trait anxiety and racial centrality. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).