Race-based trauma severity modulates avoidance of positive emotions among minoritized people

The empirical literature indicates that positive emotional avoidance may play a role in the maintenance and development of posttraumatic stress disorder. While some research has surfaced on posttraumatic stress reactions to racism and/or discrimination, researchers have yet to examine if research findings on emotional avoidance and posttraumatic stress disorder extend to racial trauma. To this end, we examined whether there was a moderating effect of racial trauma symptom severity on the relationship between positive emotional intensity and positive emotional avoidance.

A total of 216 individuals of color were recruited via Prolific (M_age = 33.1 years; 51.3% male; 30.6% Asian, 32.9% African American, 36.6% Latine). A multiple regression model was utilized to explore whether the relationship between positive emotional intensity and positive emotional avoidance depended on racial trauma severity.

There was a significant interaction between positive emotional intensity and racial trauma severity on positive emotional avoidance. The simple slopes analysis showed a significant negative association between positive emotional intensity and positive emotional avoidance when participants endorsed low and moderate (but not high) levels of racial trauma symptom severity. Positive emotional avoidance was the highest at high levels of racial trauma regardless of positive emotional intensity.

Individuals with more severe racial trauma may utilize strategies to avoid positive emotions regardless of positive emotional intensity while individuals with low or moderate race-based traumatic stress avoid low intensity positive emotions more than high intensity positive emotions. These results highlight the importance of addressing positive emotional avoidance in interventions designed to reduce the severity of racial trauma. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).