Climate change and health equity: A research agenda for psychological science.

Climate change poses unique and substantial threats to public health and well-being, from heat stress, flooding, and the spread of infectious disease to food and water insecurity, conflict, displacement, and direct health hazards linked to fossil fuels. These threats are especially acute for frontline communities. Addressing climate change and its unequal impacts requires psychologists to consider temporal and spatial dimensions of health, compound risks, as well as structural sources of vulnerability implicated by few other public health challenges. In this review, we consider climate change as a unique context for the study of health inequities and the roles of psychologists and health care practitioners in addressing it. We conclude by discussing the research infrastructure needed to broaden current understanding of these inequities, including new cross-disciplinary, institutional, and community partnerships, and offer six practical recommendations for advancing the psychological study of climate health equity and its societal relevance. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

White fragility: An emotion regulation perspective.

To address anti-Black Racism, systemic change across many domains in American life will be necessary. There are many barriers to change, however, and progress requires identifying these barriers and developing tools to overcome them. Given that White individuals disproportionately occupy "gatekeeping" positions of power, one key barrier to systemic change is rooted in White individuals' emotional (and emotion-regulatory) responses when considering their own role in racism (e.g., involvement in racist systems, biased actions). White people often experience such moments as a jeopardy to their valued goals and are consequently highly motivated to reduce the negative emotions that they feel by denying or avoiding the issue-a multifaceted response known as a White fragility response. When White individuals enact a White fragility response, they can further damage the well-being of Black members of their community and weaken their own motivation for systemic change. Given its stark costs, it is critical to understand White fragility responses. In this article, we argue that White fragility can be usefully viewed through the lens of emotion and emotion regulation theory. In particular, we describe the emotion and emotion regulation responses that characterize White fragility, summarize the wide-ranging consequences of White fragility responses, highlight more sustainable ways forward, and end by considering a broader fragility framework that acknowledges multiple dimensions of power. Although emotion regulation lies at the heart of White fragility, emotion regulation is also a tool that can be leveraged for greater justice. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

Managing emotions in the face of discrimination: The differential effects of self-immersion, self-distanced reappraisal, and positive reappraisal.

Contending with sexism is associated with negative affective outcomes, including increased anger, anxiety, and depression. Prior research demonstrates that the use of emotion-regulation strategies, such as self-distanced reappraisal, when contending with general negative interpersonal experiences, can help people manage their emotions, attenuating the associated negative affect. The present research considers whether the affective benefits of reappraisal extend to past experiences of discrimination. Specifically, we examine whether using self-distanced reappraisal (Studies 1 and 2) or positive reappraisal (Study 2) when contending with sexism yields more positive and less negative affective outcomes, relative to engaging in self-immersion. Contrary to previous research examining more general negative interpersonal experiences, we find limited evidence that self-distanced reappraisal is an effective emotion-regulation strategy for women contending with sexism (N = 1,236). The present work offers preliminary evidence, however, that positive reappraisal may be a promising emotion-regulation strategy that reduces the negative affective consequences associated with reliving past instances of sexism, compared with either self-immersion or self-distanced reappraisal. We discuss the implications of these findings for understanding the efficacy of different emotion-regulation strategies in the context of discrimination. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

Learning goals mitigate identity threat for Black individuals in threatening interracial interactions.

OBJECTIVE: Interactions between members of different racial and ethnic groups are often stressful. These interactions are stressful, in part, because they contribute to social identity threat-the fear of being judged or treated negatively based on one's social group membership. Previous work separately suggests that the diversity of an interaction partner's friendship network and the goals that people set for themselves influence social identity threat. Bringing these two bodies of work together, the present research examines whether adopting a learning (vs. performance) goal mitigates identity threat for Black people anticipating an interaction with a White partner who had a racially homogenous (vs. diverse) friendship network (a context previously shown to arouse identity threat). METHOD: Two experimental studies (N = 310) were conducted. Black adults (Mage = 29.66, 64% women) primed with either a performance or learning goal anticipated an interaction with a White partner who had either a racially diverse (Study 1) or racially homogenous (Studies 1 and 2) friendship network. After, we assessed participants' social identity threat and anticipated interaction experiences. RESULTS: Black adults primed with learning (vs. performance) goals expected to be perceived more positively by their interaction partner and expected to have more positive interaction experiences when they anticipated an interaction with a White partner who had a racially homogenous network of friends. CONCLUSIONS: These findings suggest that learning goals can mitigate threat among Black individuals within an otherwise identity-threatening interaction context, thus opening the door for positive interracial contact in the future even in the context of challenging interracial interactions. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

Does my professor think my ability can change? Students' perceptions of their STEM professors' mindset beliefs predict their psychological vulnerability, engagement, and performance in class.

Two experiments and 2 field studies examine how college students' perceptions of their science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) professors' mindset beliefs about the fixedness or malleability of intelligence predict students' anticipated and actual psychological experiences and performance in their STEM classes, as well as their engagement and interest in STEM more broadly. In Studies 1 (N = 252) and 2 (N = 224), faculty mindset beliefs were experimentally manipulated and students were exposed to STEM professors who endorsed either fixed or growth mindset beliefs. In Studies 3 (N = 291) and 4 (N = 902), we examined students' perceptions of their actual STEM professors' mindset beliefs and used experience sampling methodology (ESM) to capture their in-the-moment psychological experiences in those professors' classes. Across all studies, we find that students who perceive that their professor endorses more fixed mindset beliefs anticipate (Studies 1 and 2) and actually experience (Studies 3 and 4) more psychological vulnerability in those professors' classes-specifically, they report less belonging in class, greater evaluative concerns, greater imposter feelings, and greater negative affect. We also find that in-the-moment experiences of psychological vulnerability have downstream consequences. Students who perceive that their STEM professors endorse more fixed mindset beliefs experience greater psychological vulnerability in those professors' classes, which in turn predict greater dropout intentions, lower class attendance, less class engagement, less end-of-semester interest in STEM, and lower grades. These findings contribute to our understanding of how students' perceptions of professors' mindsets can serve as a situational cue that affects students' motivation, engagement, and performance in STEM. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).

STEM faculty who believe ability is fixed have larger racial achievement gaps and inspire less student motivation in their classes.

An important goal of the scientific community is broadening the achievement and participation of racial minorities in STEM fields. Yet, professors' beliefs about the fixedness of ability may be an unwitting and overlooked barrier for stigmatized students. Results from a longitudinal university-wide sample (150 STEM professors and more than 15,000 students) revealed that the racial achievement gaps in courses taught by more fixed mindset faculty were twice as large as the achievement gaps in courses taught by more growth mindset faculty. Course evaluations revealed that students were demotivated and had more negative experiences in classes taught by fixed (versus growth) mindset faculty. Faculty mindset beliefs predicted student achievement and motivation above and beyond any other faculty characteristic, including their gender, race/ethnicity, age, teaching experience, or tenure status. These findings suggest that faculty mindset beliefs have important implications for the classroom experiences and achievement of underrepresented minority students in STEM.