Name: Grace Mirabito

Ph.D. Dissertation Proposal Meeting

Date: Monday, December 5, 2022

Time: 2:00 PM

Location: https://gatech.zoom.us/j/97290104207  

Meeting ID: 972 9010 4207

Advisor: Paul Verhaeghen, Ph.D. (Georgia Tech)

Dissertation Committee Members:

Hsiao- Wen Liao, Ph.D. (Georgia Tech)

Chris Stanzione, Ph.D. (Georgia Tech)

Shawn Utsey, Ph.D. (Virginia Commonwealth University)

Natalie Watson-Singleton, Ph.D. (Spelman College)

Title: Mindfulness and its Relationship to Race-Related Stress, Racial Identity, Age, Gender, and SES Across Multiple Racial Minorities

Abstract: Racism is still a very pervasive problem in our nation. After the 2016 election, the number of racially motivated hate crimes in this country rose by 12.5%, furthermore in 2021 hate crimes rose by 39%. The literature on racism and race-related stress has predominately focused on African-American populations, which is not surprising since they experience a disproportional amount of discrimination compared to other ethnicities. Nevertheless, due to the different lived experiences with racism and discrimination for each minority, I believe it is important to assess multiple racial groups’ experience with racism (e.g. African American, Latinx, and Asian American). Racism can lead to race-related stress and thus lead to significant detriments in mental and physical health outcomes in People of Color. For example, race-related stress leads to physical and psychological symptoms like cardiovascular disease, distress, reduced quality of life, and depression. Mindfulness in its trait form might be able to alleviate these negative mental health effects by reducing rumination associated with a discriminatory event and thus alleviate anxiety and negative affect. Furthermore, mindfulness as an actual emotion-regulation coping mechanism might also be able to positively influence coping choice, towards more beneficial methods like religion, social support, social activism, etc., this mechanism seems to alleviate the negative effects of race-related stress. This study aims to understand if mindfulness both in its trait form and as a coping style are an effective method to protect against the effects of race- related stress and how rumination, a known mediator in the relationship between mindfulness and psychological outcomes, plays a role in that. Additionally, this study will explore if these relationships change based on race, racial identity, or type of racism experienced. Lastly, this study will investigate if there are differences in the choice of coping based on ethnicity, gender, age, SES, and race/ethnic identity.