(PS8-72) Online Racial Discrimination’s Impact on Black Young Adults’ Self-esteem and Social Anxiety: Examining the Mediating Role of Racism Hypervigilance

Recent studies indicate a rise in online racial discrimination (ORD), and Black youth and young adults report encountering several racial discrimination experiences daily, primarily online (Del Toro & Wang, 2023; English et al., 2020). ORD is linked to anxiety, depression, and trauma in Black and Latine youth and young adults, though its effect on self-esteem and social anxiety remain understudied (Maxie-Moreman & Tynes, 2022; Tynes et al., 2020). ORD involves receiving or being exposed to denigrating and racist media online, either directly (individual ORD) or indirectly (vicarious ORD). These experiences may erode Black young adults’ self-esteem and increase their social anxiety in offline settings, yet no studies to date have explored the impact of ORD on these specific outcomes. Furthermore, given the deleterious effects of ORD, there is an urgent need to explore potential mechanisms that may explain the relationship between ORD and psychosocial outcomes. Research on offline discrimination shows that racism hypervigilance (e.g., heightened interpersonal and environmental surveillance and caution in preparation for experiencing racism, avoidance of social situations to prevent discrimination, etc.; Carter & Kirkinis, 2021; Williams et al., 2013), could mediate the impact of ORD on psychosocial outcomes. Unfortunately, no study to date has explored if ORD experiences are associated with racism hypervigilance, or if racism hypervigilance may explain the potential relationship between ORD experiences and psychosocial outcomes (e.g., self-esteem, social anxiety symptoms, etc.). Given these limitations, the current study explored the impact of ORD on self-esteem and social anxiety symptoms, while also examining the potential mediating role of racism hypervigilance behaviors, in a sample of Black/African American young adults.

Participants were 320 young adults (M_age= 24, SD_age = 3.47) who identified as Black or African American. Participants completed measures of ORD (Tynes et al., 2010), racism hypervigilance (Williams et al., 2013), self-esteem (Rosenberg, 1965), and social anxiety symptoms (Collins et al., 2005). Sociodemographic information included age, gender, socioeconomic status, and time spent online, which were included as covariates in all analytic models. OLS regressions were used to explore the relationships between individual and vicarious ORD, self-esteem, and social anxiety symptoms. Simple mediation analyses were performed using PROCESS (Hayes, 2022) to explore the mediating influence of racism hypervigilance. Findings showed a significant indirect association between individual ORD and self-esteem through racism hypervigilance (b = -.13, 95% Bootstrap CI [-.26, -.03]). Findings also showed a significant indirect association between vicarious ORD and social anxiety symptoms through racism hypervigilance (b = .25, 95% Bootstrap CI [.10, .43]). There were no direct or indirect associations between individual ORD and social anxiety symptoms, nor between vicarious ORD and self-esteem. The clinical implications and potential for these findings to enhance community engagement and advocacy in culturally-tailored CBT for Black young adults will be addressed.