The Effects of Police Violence Media on Physiological and Reported Stress in White People

Meyer Jaafari, Jasmin

The Effects of Police Violence Media on Physiological and Reported Stress in White People

Persistent URL

https://dspace.allegheny.edu/handle/10456/56814

Author(s)

Meyer Jaafari, Jasmin

Date Issued

April 5, 2023

Abstract

Police violence against the Black community is a polarizing issue in the United States, and is often protested by social media movements such as #BlackLivesMatter. Investigations into responses elicited by exposure to similar media have shown that White people experience ‘White Fragility’. This is characterized by a lack of racial stamina eliciting desensitization responses in White people, and is harmful to movements attempting to dismantle oppression against the Black community. To examine differences in stress response based on the race of police gun violence victims, a between-subjects 3x2 factorial experimental design was utilized. Physiological equipment like ECG has been used reliably in stress research, and was therefore utilized. Furthermore, participants were prompted to report current stress responses using Positive and Negative Affect measures developed from the State-Trait Anxiety Index. The conditions in the present study used identical social media posts depicting two victims of police gun violence; a White man (Condition 1) and a Black man (Condition 2). Physiological data was collected during three phases of the study; the Baseline, Stressor, and Recovery periods, and survey data was collected during the Baseline and Stressor periods. Two hypotheses were proposed; 1) there will be a significant increase in survey-reported and/or physiological stress measures between the Baseline and Stressor periods, and 2) these significant increases will be lesser in Condition 2 than Condition 1. Results of Paired-Sample T-Tests demonstrated significance differences between the Baseline and Stressor periods for both conditions and in both the Positive and Negative Affect Measure. No significance was found between these periods for any physiological ECG features collected. In addition, no significance was found between conditions for any ECG features or survey responses. This study provides insight into the effect of police gun violence media on stress not previously studied and lays the base for continued research into race-based differences in stress response.

Major

Neuroscience

Psychology

Honors

Psychology, 2023

First Reader(s)

Clark, Rodney D.