Managing Emotions in the Face of Discrimination: Rethinking reappraisal with Dr. Ajua Duker and Dr. Dorainne Green

Managing our emotions is a central task of being human, and the science of emotion regulation as we study it today is a relatively young field. It's an especially exciting area for research questions that can add nuance to our understanding of how the "best" emotion regulation strategy for a situation may depend on the type of psychological stressor. For today's episode, I spoke with Dr. Ajua Duker and Dr. Dorainne Green about how people manage their emotions when facing discrimination and why some of the field's assumptions around what is "helpful" or "good" or "adaptive" emotion regulation won't always fit in this context. Our conversation draws from an important paper they co-led (published in Emotion) to discuss discrimination as a unique stressor that threatens one's identity and humanity, and how this context may change what kind of emotion regulation is most helpful for an individual. For example, we talk about how common reappraisal instructions like being told to "look on the bright side" can be dehumanizing, and how redemption narratives (or focusing on lessons learned) may better support people through experiences of discrimination. Dr. Duker and Dr. Green discuss how their paper came together, and the importance of finding good mentors (like their shared PhD advisor, Dr. Jennifer Richeson!). We also talk about the implications of this research for educational contexts, resilience research, and how we think about connections between emotion regulation, health, and collective action. Related episodes for further listening: Beyond Bouncing Back: Identity, stigma, and workplace resilience with Dr. Danielle King Superwoman Schema: Nuances of stress, resilience, and the superwoman schema framework with Dr. Cheryl Woods Giscombé Interwoven Histories of Stress and Emotion Research with Dr. Wendy Berry Mendes Dr. Ajua Duker is an Assistant Professor of Psychology at New York University where she studies how discrimination affects how its targets think, feel, and behave, and how people (from both dominant and marginalized groups) reason about and respond to discrimination. Her work integrates the social psychological study of intergroup relations with affective science to investigate how people manage emotions when navigating discrimination and the potential health consequences of different strategies for managing emotions (i.e., emotion regulation). Her work has been published in top journals like Emotion, Health Psychology, and Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin. Dr. Dorainne Green is an Assistant Professor of Psychological and Brain Sciences at Indiana University and a Faculty Affiliate at the Center for Research on Race and Ethnicity in Society (CRRES). Dr. Green leads the Navigating Intergroup Concepts and Emotions (NICE) Lab where she studies how threats to a person's social identity, such as group-based discrimination (e.g., racism, sexism), shape cognitive, psychological, behavioral, and physiological processes to better understand disparities that emerge across life domains. For example, some of her work considers how race-based threats to social identity affect stress-sensitive biological systems, cognitive-behavioral coping, and educational outcomes. Dr. Green's work has also been published in leading journals like American Psychologist, Current Opinion in Behavioral Sciences, and Emotion. Topics Discussed: Emotion RegulationConcentration & ReappraisalCognitive Reappraisal Self-Distanced ReappraisalPerspective Taking Discrimination/Discrimination Experiences DehumanizationCollective ActionIntergroup Emotion RegulationCoping with Stressors/Coping StrategiesStress InterventionsRedemption Narratives Papers and Resources Discussed: Duker, A., Green, D. J., Onyeador, I. N., & Richeson, J. A. (2022). Managing emotions in the face of discrimination: The differential effects of self-immersion, self-distanced reappraisal, and positive reappraisal. Emotion (Washington, D.C.), 22(7), 1435–1449. [PDF]Folkman, S., Lazarus, R. S., Dunkel-Schetter, C., DeLongis, A., & Gruen, R. J. (1986). Dynamics of a stressful encounter: cognitive appraisal, coping, and encounter outcomes. Journal of personality and social psychology, 50(5), 992–1003. Goff, P. A., Steele, C. M., & Davies, P. G. (2008). The space between us: stereotype threat and distance in interracial contexts. Journal of personality and social psychology, 94(1), 91–107.Green, D. J., Barnes, T. A., & Klein, N. D. (2024). Emotion regulation in response to discrimination: Exploring the role of self-control and impression management emotion-regulation goals. Scientific reports, 14(1), 26632.Lilgendahl, J. P., & McAdams, D. P. (2011). Constructing stories of self-growth: how individual differences in patterns of autobiographical reasoning relate to well-being in midlife. Journal of personality, 79(2), 391–428. -- The Stress Puzzle is hosted by Dr. Ryan L. Brown (https://www.ryanlinnbrown.com/) and supported by the UCSF Stress ...