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Nov 08, 2022, 12:00 pm UTC 8 min read

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The Spillover Effect

Experiencing discrimination secondhand can be just as damaging as being confronted by it. What are the mental health consequences of so-called vicarious discrimination, and how can you buffer its effects?

At the start of 2020, shortly after China declared a coronavirus outbreak and before the virus was detected in North America, many Asian Americans were not all right.  

The "China virus" or "Kung flu," as some had labeled it, was already weighing heavily on their minds. The pandemic had rekindled anti-Asian sentiment and sparked discriminatory and hateful behaviors that were quickly resonating around the world. 

"I could sense the worry, fear, and anxiety in some of the [Asian American] families I was working with," says Charissa Cheah, a professor of psychology at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, who has an interest in child development. "The virus hadn't even arrived [in the United States], but they were already impacted by their families' experiences elsewhere and by what they were reading and hearing about through WeChat and other social media channels." 

Psychologists like Cheah call this phenomenon “the spillover effect.” It means that even people who are not the direct target of discriminatory acts can be affected by them, sometimes profoundly.  

A small but growing group of researchers, like Cheah, is at the forefront of research on indirect, or vicarious, discrimination. They are demonstrating the power of discrimination to reach beyond its intended victims. And, they are documenting its insidious effects on mental health — in Black, Asian, and Latinx Americans, Indigenous people, Muslims, and LGBTQ2SIA+ individuals.

Their research is also pointing toward practical steps that people can take to buffer its effects. 

chart

One-quarter of Chinese Americans reported experiencing vicarious discrimination online and in-person every day.

Percentage & frequency of individuals who witnessed other Asian Americans targeted by COVID-19 racial discrimination in person

Parents

Almost everyday22.3%Once or twice a week21.1%A few times a month26.8%Once or twice a month18.3%Never11.5%

Cheah, C.S.L., et al. (2020)

One-quarter of Chinese Americans reported experiencing vicarious discrimination online and in-person every day.

Percentage & frequency of individuals who witnessed other Asian Americans targeted by COVID-19 racial discrimination in person

Children

Almost everyday24.8%Once or twice a week26.9%A few times a month23.1%Once or twice a month17.1%Never8.1%

Cheah, C.S.L., et al. (2020)

chart

But what was the impact of those discriminatory experiences? And was it the same for parents and children?

When Cheah looked at the mental health consequences of COVID-19 racism, she found that witnessing others being victimized correlated with symptoms of anxiety and depression in parents and youth. In youth, vicarious discrimination was also associated with poor psychological well-being.  

In her 2021 follow-up study, the association between vicarious discrimination and mental health issues like anxiety and depression was more robust, especially for adults. She also found that vicarious discrimination was associated with lower psychological well-being.

That discovery was particularly striking, says Cheah, because psychological well-being is a broad measure of mental health and tends to remain stable over time. The fact that it was negatively affected suggested that vicarious discrimination was taking a toll.  

"There's something about vicarious discrimination," Cheah says. "The cumulative experience of witnessing, hearing, and thinking about racial victimization day after day and month after month has a more negative impact on people." 

What's more, in both of her surveys, experiencing vicarious discrimination was more harmful to women and adolescent girls — a finding that Cheah plans to investigate further.  

"In terms of gender roles, girls are more likely to be socialized as cultural gatekeepers. When culture, this particularly salient aspect of their identity, is targeted, directly or indirectly, I think they're more impacted," she suggests. 

In a U.S. study during the COVID-19 pandemic:

%

of respondents reported experiencing COVID-19–related discrimination between December 2020 and February 2021.

%

of respondents reported that others had acted afraid of them because of suspected COVID-19 infection.

%

of Asian respondents reported experiencing discriminatory behaviors, the highest among racial/ethnic minority groups.

Source: Strassle, P.D., et al. (2022)

Media onslaught and teen mental health

Media onslaught and teen mental health

Like Cheah, Nia Heard-Garris is interested in the impact of racism on child health and how to help children and their families thrive. She is a pediatrician and researcher at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine, where she studies the relationship between adverse childhood experiences and health. 

“My concern is that black Americans, especially youths, are impacted by vicarious racism more than we expect and that its impact on children is understudied,” she wrote in 2017 following the race riots in Charlottesville, Virginia. “Also, I want to know how to best help all of our children. What can we do to help them deal with their feelings? And what can we do to help them and ourselves deal with racism?”  

In a series of recent studies, Heard-Garris explored teenagers' experiences with racially charged content online, via traditional and social media. She wanted to understand how the content affected teens’ emotions and how they coped with negative news. Eighteen teens participated in the research: Eight self-identified as Hispanic/Latinx, seven as Black/African American, and three as White/Caucasian. 

In one study, most teens said their moods worsened after reading about racist events. One teen called their mood "melanincholy" — a fusion of the words "melanin" and "melancholy." The teens also described feeling overwhelmed, helpless, or numbed by the media onslaught.

A second study showed that teenagers’ tended to respond to racist events targeting others in two ways: Helplessness and activism.

Their first response was feelings of helplessness, especially when the target was someone close to them. Their second was activism, which was defined in the study as “taking action collectively or individually to bring about meaningful change.” Reposting social media was one common way they reported taking action. 
 
Helplessness and activism are seemingly condradictory responses to vicarious discrimination, but Heard-Garris suggests that activism may help adolescents process their negative feelings in a healthy way. 

A second study showed that teenagers’ tended to respond to racist events targeting others in two ways: Helplessness and activism.

Their first response was feelings of helplessness, especially when the target was someone close to them. Their second was activism, which was defined in the study as “taking action collectively or individually to bring about meaningful change.” Reposting social media was one common way they reported taking action. 
 
Helplessness and activism are seemingly condradictory responses to vicarious discrimination, but Heard-Garris suggests that activism may help adolescents process their negative feelings in a healthy way. 

The spillover effects of police violence

There are 1.3 police killings of unarmed Black Americans per week, according to Jacob Bor, an assistant professor in the Department of Global Health at Boston University's School of Public Health.  

There is also plenty of anecdotal evidence that Black Americans' mental health suffers in the wake of police killings. Just think back to the summer of 2020, when the deaths of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and Ahmaud Arbery reverberated through Black communities in the United States and elsewhere. Feelings of numbness, sadness, grief, heartbreak, and anger were commonplace.  

Bor decided to take a closer look at the spillover effects of these killings — which he considers an expression of systemic racism in the U.S. In a 2018 study, he found a causal connection between Black Americans' exposure to police killings of unarmed Black Americans in their home state and the number of poor mental health days they reported. He also found that the adverse effects of those events on mental health were most pronounced one to two months after exposure and cumulative. They were also specific to Black Americans.   

To put Bor's findings into context, the mental health burden of exposure to police killings amounts to 55 million poor mental health days per year — a figure nearly as high as the mental health burden of diabetes among Black Americans.  

Still, on The Lancet podcast, Bor said that his results likely underestimate the mental health spillover of unarmed police killings of black Americans:

“This study may really just highlight the tip of the iceberg in terms of the lived experiences of Black Americans, their contact with exposures to structural racism, and the mental health impacts of those exposures.”

What can you do to buffer the effects of vicarious discrimination?

It can be difficult to limit your exposure to secondhand discrimination and mitigate its effects, but here are some practical steps you can take.

Take a media break

In the short term, take a media break and focus instead on offline hobbies and creative pursuits. If that is not realistic, take steps to avoid media sources that are likely to deliver distressing content. If you are a parent, try to cultivate media literacy in your kids, including how social media algorithms work and how to find content that can be trusted.

Take action

In one study, American teenagers instinctively turned to activism as a positive coping strategy. They were on to something. Advocacy and engagement are powerful protective factors, according to Charissa Cheah, a professor of psychology at the University of Maryland-Baltimore County. That could mean speaking out or reporting experiences of racism and discrimination to authorities, learning how to respond effectively, or engaging with your community.

Boost your identity

When confronted with racism and discrimination, your first instinct may be to downplay your identity. That may be a beneficial coping strategy in the short term. But in the long term, Cheah says it can undermine your sense of pride and belonging — two protective factors. Instead, Cheah recommends finding ways to strengthen your identity. "Do more research about it, read about it, find strengths, reach out to others in your community who can support that aspect of yourself and help build your pride.”

Find support

Find people to talk to, confide in, and share your grief. Seek support groups that provide opportunities to relate to others who share your identity. For children and adolescents, support them by talking to them about experiences of bias and discrimination. But don't focus just on the fear and anxiety, suggests Cheah. Instead, try to equip them with strategies and resources they can draw on. "Kids are experiencing [discrimination] whether or not you think they are. That's why parents need to get in there and be proactive," she says.

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