Reactions to Experiencing Distress (RED) Study
University of Louisville
Summary
The goal of this study is to understand whether race-related stress can impact the way people direct their attention and what interventions may be helpful for attention.
Description
Race-related stress is a public health problem and a known predictor of severe psychological symptoms in Black Americans. Although there is a strong link between race-related stress and adverse mental health outcomes, limited research has examined the transdiagnostic mechanisms that explain how experiencing race-related stress contributes to psychological symptoms or what interventions might effectively target these mechanisms. The scientific premise of this study is that race-related stress may contribute to disproportionate allocation of attention toward threatening stimuli (i.e., attention…
Eligibility
- Age range
- 18+ years
- Sex
- All
- Healthy volunteers
- Yes
Inclusion Criteria: * Eligibility for this study will include a positive response to the following questions: 1) Do you identify as Black or African American? 2) Have you ever in your lifetime personally experienced or witnessed another person experience any acts of racism or racial microaggressions? 3) Are you willing to complete a 1.5-hour study at the University of Louisville in the next 2 weeks? 4) Are you 18 or older? Exclusion Criteria: * None
Interventions
- BehavioralStress and Mindfulness Intervention
Participants will be randomized to either the race-related stress condition or the non-race-related stress condition and the experimental group (7-minute pre-recorded audio file of a guided mindfulness practice) or the control group (7-minute pre-recorded neutral audio file). Thus there are four conditions total (RRS/Control Audio, RRS/Mindfulness Audio, Control Stress/Control Audio, Control Stress/Mindfulness Audio)
Location
- Davidson HallLouisville, Kentucky