Racial Incivility in Everyday Life: A Conceptual Framework for Linking Process,Person,and Context

Differential exposure and reactivity

Bolger and Schilling (1991) identified two fundamental ways in which daily stressors can influence health: exposure and reactivity. Exposure refers to the extent to which a person is likely to encounter a stressful event. Reactivity is the extent to which a person is likely to show concurrent psychological or physical reactions to a stressful event. Scores of daily-process studies have examined the role of personality in differential exposure and reactivity to daily stressors (Almeida, 2005; Bolger & Zuckerman, 1995; Gunthert et al., 1999; Mroczek & Almeida, 2004; Suls et al., 1998). Far fewer studies have probed the occurrence of daily microaggressions and their relationship to emotional and physical functioning (Burrow & Ong, 2010; Ong, Burrow, et al., 2013; Ong, Cerrada, et al., 2017). Further, in virtually all of these studies, exposure and reactivity processes have been conceptualized as criterion variables to be predicted (moderated) by individual differences, such as personality (Bolger & Zuckerman, 1995), racial identity (Burrow & Ong, 2010), and vigilance for discrimination or stigma consciousness (Ong, Cerrada, et al., 2017).

By contrast, more recent daily-process studies have conceptualized exposure and reactivity as predictor variables. These studies demonstrate that greater daily stressor exposure and reactivity forecast later depressive symptoms (Cohen et al., 2005) and depressive disorders (Charles et al., 2013), higher levels of inflammation (Sin et al., 2015), poorer sleep (Ong, Exner-Cortens, et al., 2013), and early mortality (Mroczek et al., 2015; Stanton et al., 2019).

Ong and Burrow (2018) extended this research by examining individual differences in affective reactivity to daily discrimination—operationalized as changes in positive and negative affect in response to daily racial discrimination—as a risk factor for subsequent depression in African Americans. They found that heightened affective reactivity (i.e., either greater increases in negative affect or decreases in positive affect) in the context of daily racial discrimination predicted elevated depressive symptoms 1 year later. These findings not only demonstrate the unique contribution of daily-process studies to our understanding of depression vulnerability in African Americans but also underscore how daily study designs can be incorporated into longitudinal studies, thereby offering unique opportunities for testing theory-driven models of microaggressions and health now in the literature (Lui & Quezada, 2018; Sue et al., 2007; Wong et al., 2014).

Differential recovery

Recovery is the extent to which a person is likely to show lingering psychological or physical reactions to a stressful event. Leading models of stress emphasize how slow or prolonged stress responses can create excessive wear and tear over time on biological health via allostatic load (McEwen, 1998; McEwen & Stellar, 1993). Geronimus (1992) proposed the weathering hypothesis, according to which Black Americans experience early health deterioration as a consequence of the cumulative stress of living in a race-conscious society that stigmatizes and disadvantages them. Ong, Burrow, et al. (2013) demonstrated that relationships between racial microaggressions and well-being were not limited to concurrent (same-day) effects but extended to influence each other 1 day later. In one of the few studies to examine the relationship between microaggressions and physiological processes, Zeiders et al. (2018) provided important insights into the dynamics of microaggression experiences that give rise to changes in diurnal cortisol. Zeiders et al. found that on weeks of greater microaggressions, African American and Latino youths evidenced greater overall cortisol output and cortisol-awakening responses the subsequent week, consistent with findings from studies that used traditional measures of racial discrimination (see Korous et al., 2017).

Researchers have examined stress-related effects that continue past initial reactivity and their links to physical health. Such effects are illustrated in a study by Leger et al. (2018). Using a daily-burst design (i.e., 8-day diary study nested within a 10-year longitudinal study design), they demonstrated that lingering negative affect in response to daily stressors was associated with greater numbers of chronic conditions and worse functional limitations 10 years later. Does a similar process drive maladaptation to everyday microaggressions, such that failure to recover from these daily experiences is a risk factor for later health? What is the relative importance of reactivity and recovery processes in the context of everyday adjustment to microaggressions? To date, no study has systematically examined these questions.

Differential appraisal

Differential appraisal, a fourth daily process, refers to the likelihood that a person will construe an event as stressful. Appraisal processes play a critical role in shaping physiological response to stress. Considerable empirical evidence indicates that appraisal dimensions involving threats to safety, lack of controllability, and negative social evaluation are reliably associated with biological dysregulation (see Epel et al., 2018; Segerstrom & Miller, 2004). The importance of appraisal is particularly relevant in the wake of recent critiques of the microaggression literature (Lilienfeld, 2017a, 2017b, 2020). Here, two points deserve comment. First, as noted, stigma consciousness or the tendency to expect to be racially stereotyped by others can shape perceptions of daily racial microaggressions and magnify its effects on health. For example, findings from a daily diary study of Asian Americans revealed that as participants’ levels of stigma consciousness increased, so did their tendency to experience diminished sleep quality and shorter sleep on nights after they reported more microaggressions (Ong, Cerrada, et al., 2017). Second, although these findings do provide some corroborating evidence that psychological appraisals—especially discrimination-related vigilance—may increase individuals’ reactivity to daily microaggression experiences, it is not at all clear that it is through such daily experiences that the effects of habitual appraisals and dispositions are revealed. Sticking with our example, it is possible that stigma consciousness may affect how people react to daily microaggressions; certain people may habitually appraise microaggression experiences as more harmful and threatening than others. Alternatively, stigma consciousness may lead to maladaptive outcomes through a mechanism unrelated to daily events; that is, stigma consciousness may have an endogenous or direct effect on well-being.

Despite the current attention to subjective appraisals of microaggressions (Haidt, 2017; Lilienfeld, 2017b), the relative importance of daily microaggression processes (e.g., exposure, reactivity) in linking trait-like appraisals (e.g., vigilance for discrimination) to daily adjustment has not been established. This is an important area of research given that subjective appraisals are malleable and have been suggested as potential targets for intervention to improve affective responses to social stress (Jamieson et al., 2018).

Coping choice and effectiveness

In addition to differential appraisal, individual differences in coping behavior may also influence daily adaptational processes. Indeed, prominent models of stress and coping maintain that the evaluation of stressful life events depends on individuals’ appraisals of both the event and their coping resources (Lazarus & Folkman, 1984). Bolger and Zuckerman (1995) distinguished coping choice from coping effectiveness. Coping choice refers to the strategies people choose in dealing with stressful experiences, whereas coping effectiveness refers to the extent to which those strategies reduce maladaptive outcomes after stressful events.

Likewise, the concept of coping has received attention in the microaggression literature (Lui & Quezada, 2018; Wong et al., 2014). For example, Torres et al. (2010) found that for African American college students, engagement in active coping behaviors (e.g., planning, problem solving) was protective in the context of racial-microaggression experiences, especially those involving ascriptions of intelligence or having one’s ability underestimated. Likewise, Sanchez and colleagues (2018) found that engagement coping strategies (e.g., problem solving, cognitive restructuring, social support) were beneficial for Asian American and Latino/Latina American college students’ mental health in the face of racial and ethnic microaggressions. Further, DeLapp and Williams (2019) reviewed the coping literature and identified preventative or proactive coping as an understudied coping approach within the context of racial discrimination.

Although many investigators interested in stress and coping have turned to daily-process designs (Tennen & Affleck, 1996, 2002), little research to date has used daily-process methods to examine coping and racial microaggressions (but see Hoggard et al., 2012). Such studies would have both theoretical and practical significance. Theoretically, studying coping and microaggressions as they unfold in daily life would reveal which coping strategies people adopt to cope with everyday microaggressions and the resulting effects on adaptational outcomes. Practically, findings from microaggression studies that include daily-process measures of coping could critically inform intervention programs. Should these programs (a) teach individuals to avoid microaggressions, (b) teach individuals to cope with them more effectively, or (c) emphasize strategies that are not directly tied to stressful situations (e.g., exercise, guided imagery, mindfulness meditation)? Do all coping strategies show consistency across different types of microaggressions (e.g., second-class citizenship, ascription of intelligence, invisibility)? To the extent that people are more variable than consistent across situations in their coping strategies, how should intervention programs be designed to account for this variability? Without examining coping as a daily process, one cannot begin to address these central questions.

Daily microaggressions and the structure of affective experience

Before leaving the discussion of microaggressions as a daily process, it should be noted that the degree of independence between positive- and negative-affect states remains an area of research interest and debate. Some investigators have argued that positive and negative affect are best represented as separate dimensions; others have argued that they vary along a single bipolar continuum (for a review, see Reich et al., 2003). The dynamic model of affect (DMA) proposed by Zautra et al. (2001) posits that the distinction between positive and negative affect becomes less clear during times of stress. In contrast to other models of stress and coping, which view emotional adaptation entirely in terms of regulating psychological distress, the DMA takes into account both positive and negative affect in the stress process. The model predicts that positive and negative affect are relatively independent under ordinary circumstances, whereas during stressful situations an inverse correlation between positive and negative affect increases sharply.

There are several theoretical implications of the DMA for microaggression research. Perhaps the most fundamental implication is the idea that a person’s level of stress should not be ignored when assessing daily affective states (Ong, Zautra, & Finan, 2017). This idea further implies that the degree of relationship between positive and negative affect (i.e., emotional complexity) may vary depending on information-processing demands, including the degree of microaggression-related stress that the individual is under at the time of assessment. A related implication is that at least two dimensions are needed to fully classify human emotions—one that assesses the level of negative affect and accompanying motivations and another that gauges the extent of positive affect and accompanying approach processes. Although including within- and between-persons context effects will make analytic models more complicated, it seems clear that such sources of variance require greater empirical attention in future microaggression research (Ong & Burrow, 2017).

Traumas

Traumas are distinguished from other events by their suddenness, magnitude, and potential for life-threatening harm and injury. These events occupy the discrete end of the stress continuum (Wheaton, 1994) and can occur at any point in the life course. Among the traumas closely linked to race are those that are brought on by exposure and reexposure to the stress of racism (Carter, 2007). Comas-Díaz et al. (2019) defined racial trauma as

events of danger related to real or perceived experiences of racial discrimination. These include threats of harm and injury, humiliating and shaming events, and witnessing harm to other POCI [people of color and Indigenous individuals] due to real or perceived racism. (p. 1)

Experiences of racial trauma (direct or vicarious) are often varied and heterogenous across socially marginalized groups. This is illustrated in an early case study by Loo (1994) that accounts in disturbing detail the heightened sense of “double assault” experienced by a 45-year-old Chinese American Vietnam veteran:

I am a sitting duck. Since everyone was in a combat mode, I was threatened by death from all sides—the enemy and my own fellow GIs. I had to be more vigilant than white or Black soldiers because American soldiers were conditioned to respond to anybody Oriental-looking with animosity and hatred. The philosophy was: kill anyone with slant eyes, hate slant eyes. (pp. 645–646)

Subsequent empirical work by Loo and colleagues (2001) found that exposure to race-related stressors in the military and in war zones was a stronger predictor of symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) than combat exposure or military rank.

Chavez-Dueñas et al. (2019) documented the manifold traumatic stressors (e.g., extortion, rape, kidnapping, racism, deportation, family separation) that Latino/Latina immigrants to the United States are at risk of experiencing throughout the immigration process. The collective impact of these traumatic events is most keenly felt by children. As Chavez-Dueñas et al. (2019) poignantly observed, “among Latinx children of parents who have been detained or deported, significantly higher externalizing behavior and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms have been reported by parents and clinicians, compared with children of parents without prior contact with immigration enforcement” (p. 54).

Some traumas are so profoundly destructive and outside the range of usual human experience that they are considered sui generis and thus accorded separate status as stressors. Foremost among these are historical traumas, which are defined as collective injuries and unresolved grief experienced by Indigenous people and cultural groups over time and across generations (Mohatt et al., 2014). The transgenerational impact of historical trauma can be seen among descendants of diverse communities, including American Indians and the heritage of cultural genocide (Brave Heart & DeBruyn, 1998), Mexican Americans and the legacy of anti-immigrant animus (Estrada, 2009), African Americans and the lasting impact of segregation (Massey & Denton, 1993), Japanese Americans after internment (Nagata, 1993), and Vietnamese Americans after refugee resettlement (Zhou & Bankston, 1998). These examples give voice to a crucial point: Persistent disparities in rates of morbidity and mortality—among groups whose statuses yield the least power, privilege, and prestige—may be moored to instances of personal and historic trauma that endure within and across generations.

Life events

Distinguished from traumatic events are untoward life events that are acute (time-limited) and episodic (identifiable onset) in nature. Among the life events that illuminate the enduring connections between social conditions and individual health are those that are patterned by race and ethnicity. A stunning example comes from the work of Umberson and colleagues (2017), who documented disparities between Black and White Americans in the extent and timing of life-course exposure to the death of family members in the United States. Using data from the National Longitudinal Study of Youth and the Health and Retirement Study, the researchers found that relative to White Americans, Black Americans were “more likely to experience the death of mothers, fathers, siblings, spouses, and children and to experience multiple family member deaths. Moreover, racial differences in exposure to deaths of mothers, fathers, and siblings appear early in childhood” (p. 917).

Beyond racial disparities in life events are those eventful stressors that are uniquely borne out of racism and discrimination. As D. R. Williams and colleagues have so clearly demonstrated in their explication of racism as a stressor (Clark et al., 1999; Forman et al., 1997; Kessler et al., 1999), relative to non-Hispanic White Americans, racial minorities in the United States consistently report more experiences of lifetime discrimination (e.g., being unfairly prevented from moving into a neighborhood) at every level of age, gender, and socioeconomic status (SES). Moreover, lifetime exposure to racism and discrimination is associated with broad-based morbidity and mortality (Ong & Williams, 2019; D. R. Williams, Lawrence, Davis, & Vu, 2019; D. R. Williams & Mohammed, 2013).

Macrostressors

Occurring above the level of the individual are large-scale events, or macrostressors, that have reverberating effects, such as economic recessions, natural disasters, and terrorist attacks (Wheaton, 1994). The health effects of macrostressors can be seen in a dramatic study of birth outcomes before and after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. Lauderdale (2006) examined birth records for all births in California during the 6 months after September 2001 and compared these records with records from 1 year earlier. The study found the incidence of preterm birth and low birth weight was substantially elevated among Arab American women 6 months after 9/11, but no increase was seen for other ethnic groups. As Williams and Mohammed (2009) suggested, “macro-stressors that are ostensibly unrelated to race or ethnicity can be racialized in ways that can generate increased discrimination for socially stigmatized groups” (p. 30).

There is evidence that highly publicized race-related events can predict changes in health. For example, in a 2006 case that was widely covered by the media, a Black woman accused White male members of the Duke University men’s lacrosse team of rape and violence. Richman and Jonassaint (2008) found that in the wake of the alleged incident, Black college students had higher and more sustained cortisol levels during a laboratory stress task compared with participants who completed the laboratory stress task before the alleged incident. Although no data are yet available, it is possible that the police killing of George Floyd, an unarmed Black man—whose death sparked an upwelling of protest and discontent over police violence (see Bor et al., 2018; Harderman et al., 2020)—could engender similar effects.

Nonevents

Although individuals are profoundly influenced by what they experience, it is reasonable to assume that they are also affected by what they do not experience. Stress researchers use the term nonevents to refer to anticipated events or experiences that do not come to pass, such as being unable to have children when children are desired or not finding a marital partner. Gersten et al. (1974) define a nonevent as an “event that is desired or anticipated and does not occur. . . . Alternatively, a nonevent could be seen as something desirable which does not occur when its occurrence is normative for people of a certain group” (p. 89). For Wheaton (1994), nonevents occupy an ambiguous middle ground on the stress continuum between time-limited “eventful” stressors (e.g., retirement) on the one hand and more continuous chronic stressors (e.g., infertility) on the other.

Although scientific interest in nonevents is not new (e.g., Wheaton, 1994, 2010), only a handful of studies have examined the psychological effects of unfulfilled expectations or goal strivings in samples of racial and ethnic minorities. Using data from the U.S. National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (1974–1994), Mossakowski (2011) found that achieving a lower level of education than expected, becoming a parent unexpectedly, and being out of the labor force unexpectedly between the ages of 19 and 27 presaged higher levels of depressive symptoms between the ages of 29 and 37 among Black, Hispanic, and White respondents. Sellers and Neighbors (2008) used data from the National Survey of Black Americans (1987–1992) and found that goal-striving stress, defined as the discrepancy between expectations and achievements, was associated with lower levels of happiness, life satisfaction, self-esteem, and higher levels of psychological distress. More research incorporating prospective designs, longitudinal data, and control groups (Lucas, 2007) is needed before firm conclusions can be drawn about the role of nonevents as a key source of stress in the lives of individuals from diverse racial and ethnic backgrounds.

To date, research on nonevents has largely focused on the nonoccurrence of expected and desired events. However, it is plausible that nonevents that are expected but undesired are also related to individual well-being. Although much research has sought to assess self-reported experiences of discrimination (Lewis et al., 2015), no empirical attention to date has been given to capturing discriminatory events that are expected but never occur (see D. R. Williams et al., 2003). It is possible that such violations in expectation might be experienced as stress relief in some individuals, especially those who may show sustained vigilance around discrimination (Lewis et al., 2015). Overall, a closer consideration of research at the interface of discrimination, nonevents, and ethnic and racial disparities in mental health is warranted.

Chronic stressors

A final class of stressors referred to as chronic stressors, represent unresolved problems, conflicts, and hardships that people face in their daily lives. Unlike eventful stressors that have clear temporal origins, chronic stressors tend to be recurrent, surfacing within major social roles (e.g., work, friendship, marriage, or parenthood) that are themselves enduring (Pearlin, 1995). In addition to role-based stressors, Pearlin and Skaff (1996) distinguished between chronic stressors that are encountered on a daily basis (quotidian strains) from those that cut across multiple roles (ambient strains).

Among the chronic stressors that are likely to be repeatedly experienced across multiple contexts (e.g., education, housing, medical care, justice system) over the life course are discriminatory experiences based on race and ethnicity (D. R. Williams & Mohammed, 2013; D. R. Williams et al., 2003). Although quotidian and ambient strains are captured in traditional self-report measures of discrimination, such as the Everyday Discrimination Scale (D. R. Williams et al., 1997) and the Major Experiences of Discrimination Questionnaire (D. R. Williams et al., 2008), these measures are typically included in studies to assess their unique explanatory utility in the prediction of health. Less common are studies that seek to account for the diverse ways in which ambient and quotidian stressors act in concert to produce undesirable outcomes. Are the effects of major experiences of racial discrimination indirect, operating through day-to-day experiences of discrimination (Ong et al., 2009)? Do major and everyday experiences of discrimination converge in the production of stress, each providing meaning and context for the other (Serido et al., 2004; see also M. T. Williams, 2020a)? Pursuing these questions may lead to important insights into how racial inequalities stemming from repeated exposure to discrimination may come to be reproduced.