Racial discrimination and anger expression: a preliminary test of a social cognitive model

Exposure to discrimination is associated with greater use of anger suppression (anger-in) and outward expression (anger-out), both of which are reflexive anger expression styles that are linked with relationship difficulties and poorer health. Social cognitive processes, such as heightened vigilance for social threats and rumination, may link discrimination to mental health, but little is known about the role of social cognition in the associations of discrimination to anger expression.

A racially diverse community sample (n_analytic  = 155, 67% women, 39% Black, 39% Latino/a, M _age = 39) self-reported racial discrimination (including two racial discrimination subtypes - stigmatization and physical threat), social vigilance, discrimination-based rumination, and discrimination-related anger expression at one time point.

Total (overall) discrimination was positively associated with reflexive but not reflective (anger-control) anger-expression. Tests of statistical mediation revealed significant indirect effects of rumination, but not social vigilance in the association of each type of discrimination to anger-out. Rumination also had a significant indirect effect in the relations of stigmatization to anger-in. In contrast, social vigilance demonstrated significant indirect associations between physical threat and anger-in.

Although the present work was cross-sectional and thus preliminary, findings suggest that racial discrimination is associated with anger expression styles via social cognitive factors. The pathways vary depending on the type of discrimination and the type of anger expression. Future work should include longitudinal studies to test mediation pathways. Examining social cognitive mediators of different types of discriminatory experiences to anger expression may guide the development of interventions to reduce the social costs of discrimination.