Ethnic-racial identity and racial trauma: The role of emotional avoidance

Research on posttraumatic stress disorder and ethnic identity suggests that emotional avoidance mediates the relationship between ethnic identity and posttraumatic stress disorder symptoms. We were interested in examining whether these findings extend to racial trauma.

Two hundred sixteen individuals of color were recruited via Prolific (M_age = 33.1 years; 51.3% male; 30.6% Asian, 32.9% African American, 36.6% Latinx). Participants completed measures of on ethnic identity, racial trauma, and emotional avoidance. Two distinct mediation models were analyzed to explore the mediating role of positive emotional avoidance (Model 1) and negative emotional avoidance (Model 2) in the relationship between ethnic identity and racial trauma.

Model 1 revealed that ethnic-racial identity did predict positive emotional avoidance, and positive emotional avoidance did predict racial trauma symptoms; additionally positive emotional avoidance partially mediated the relationship between ethnic-racial identity and racial trauma. In Model 2, negative emotional avoidance and ethnic-racial identity predicted racial trauma; however, negative emotional avoidance did not mediate the relationship between ethnic-racial identity and racial trauma symptoms.

The findings shed light on the parallels and distinctions between posttraumatic stress disorder and racial trauma. Emotional avoidance seems to play a role in maintenance of traumatic stress regardless of trauma type. Further, strong ethnic identity may serve as protective factor against development of racial trauma symptoms by lowering tendency to engage in avoidance of positive but not negative emotions. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).