Summary: A study from North Carolina State University found that Black women who witness vicarious online microaggressions—racial or gendered slights directed at others—experience poorer sleep quality. The research highlights the significant impact of vicarious online microaggressions on sleep, which can be more detrimental than in-person microaggressions.
Key Takeaways:
- Vicarious Online Microaggressions Impact Sleep: Black women who witness microaggressions online experience poorer sleep quality, even when they aren’t the direct target.
- Stronger Effect Than In-Person Incidents: Vicarious online microaggressions had a more significant negative effect on sleep quality than in-person microaggressions aimed directly at the individual.
- Health Practitioners Should Address Online Stressors: The study suggests that healthcare providers need to consider online stress experiences when addressing sleep issues in Black women.
A new study finds that microaggressions aimed at Black women online appear to harm the health of other Black women who see those microaggressions—even though the microaggressions are not aimed at them personally.
Specifically, researchers found that encountering vicarious microaggressions was associated with worse sleep quality for young Black women.
“A lot of people falsely treat microaggressions as a kind of joke, but they are serious and have serious consequences,” says Vanessa Volpe, PhD, first author of a paper on the work and an associate professor of psychology at North Carolina State University, in a release.
The Impact of Subtle and Ongoing Discrimination
Microaggressions are often subtle instances of mistreatment or insulting behavior that usually revolve around negative stereotypes. But while microaggressions are often subtle, they also accrue over time.
“And because people—including Black women—often face a consistent stream of these microaggressions, there’s a tremendous amount of evidence showing that these microaggressions can have a serious impact on people’s health and well-being,” Volpe says in a release.
According to Volpe, the study was launched to learn more about the extent to which Black women encounter microaggressions online and offline, as well as how these microaggressions may relate to sleep quality. “We focused on sleep quality because it is a health outcome in itself—and is also well-established as a behavior that can be affected by stress,” she says in a release.
The Study’s Methodology and Findings
For this study, researchers recruited 478 Black women between the ages of 18 and 35 who live in the United States. Study participants completed a detailed survey designed to capture how often they experienced microaggressions related to their race and gender both via in-person interactions and online.
For online microaggressions, the survey distinguished between microaggressions aimed at the study participant and vicarious microaggressions, in which the study participant observed microaggressions that weren’t aimed specifically at them. The survey also included a range of questions focused on understanding each study participant’s sleep quality.
Vicarious Microaggressions Are the Most Common
Online microaggressions directed at the study participant were the least commonly reported, which researchers believe may be related to the ability of social media users to curate their online experience—choosing which accounts to follow, blocking accounts they don’t want to see, and so on.
“To be clear, the Black women in our study still experienced direct online microaggressions; they just experienced these microaggressions less frequently than other microaggressions,” Volpe says in a release.
In-person microaggressions were the second-most common, with vicarious online microaggressions being by far the most commonly experienced.
The Surprising Impact on Sleep
In-person microaggressions were associated with lower sleep quality scores, but only the vicarious online microaggressions were uniquely associated with greater likelihood of clinically relevant poor sleep quality.
“Study participants were asked how frequently they were exposed to vicarious online microaggressions, and they answered on a 0-5 scale,” Volpe says in a release. “We found that for each unit you go up on that 0-5 scale, the likelihood of clinically relevant poor sleep quality goes up by 33%.
“The fact that vicarious online microaggressions can adversely impact Black women seems particularly relevant in this election year, with the first Black woman serving as the presidential nominee of a major political party.”
Implications for Health Professionals and Researchers
The findings have ramifications for both health practitioners and researchers.
“One takeaway message is that health professionals who are working with people experiencing sleep problems need to ask about stress experiences that may be specific to sex and race—including stress related to their online experiences,” Volpe says in a release. “They should work with their patients to find stress management plans and solutions that take these unique experiences and their patients’ online engagement into consideration.
“What’s more, it’s a little surprising that vicarious microaggressions seem to have a bigger impact on sleep quality than in-person microaggressions that are aimed directly at you. That suggests that the research community needs to take a closer look at vicarious microaggressions.”
The study was published in Health Psychology.
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