Racism hurts, can anti-racism heal?: Positive mental health correlates of anti-racist engagement

Abstract Racism can hurt by negatively impacting mental health. For instance, large-scale events tied to racism like the May 2020 police-involved murder of George Floyd have been linked poor health indicators (e.g., depression, anxiety). Notably, spark anti-racist engagement— support for addressing systemic racism. example, Floyd’s sparked unprecedented engagement including heightened Black Lives Matter (BLM) and protest participation. The present research explored potential that heal: be positively associated with well-being. First, Study 1 found state-level BLM (i.e., numbers, anti-racism information-seeking on Google/YouTube) during an 8-week period following death was positive lower depression anxiety, higher self-rated health). It these effects among racial/ethnic minorities Black/African Americans, Hispanics, N=161,359) Whites (N=516,002). Then, 2 examined social media data tweets) emotional used a measure happiness indexed across 144,649,285,571 tweets from 2019 through 2021. correlation between volume content referenced efforts address racism) measure. Finally, 3 data/information-seeking sample (N=100,321) posted April July 2020. Conceptually replicating Studies 1-2, greater emotion/sentiment happiness) relative negative Relevant theory policy, observed results suggest benefits well-being groups.