<body><div><figure><img src="https://img.particlenews.com/image.php?type=thumbnail_580x000&amp;url=3x5sUk_0wD8ZBGB00" alt="https://img.particlenews.com/image.php?url=3x5sUk_0wD8ZBGB00" width="800" height="800" ></figure><ul><li>"Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced." – James Arthur Baldwin</li></ul>The killings of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, and others have forced many people to confront the deep-rooted racism in the United States. However, recognizing the problem of racism can be uncomfortable and upsetting—feelings some people want to avoid as much as possible. Certainly, most people do not like feeling bad, but our research suggests that people differ in how much they want to avoid feeling negative emotions. Is it possible that those who want to avoid negative feelings as much as possible might struggle to acknowledge racism?We examined this question in two studies involving more than 200 undergraduate students from a university in California. In our first study, participants indicated how much they wanted to avoid negative feelings and how much they believed that systemic racism caused certain facts, such as high poverty rates among African Americans, Latinos, and Native Americans. We also assessed their political beliefs, ethnicity, and moral values because past research showed that these factors are associated with systemic racism beliefs. Even after taking these additional factors into account, the more people wanted to avoid negative feelings, the less they acknowledged that systemic racism exists. This is a problem because if people do not acknowledge racism, it is hard to address it and dismantle racial injustices.We wondered if wanting to avoid negative feelings directly affects the recognition of systemic racism. To test this, we conducted an experiment. We told one group of participants that according to research, feeling negative emotions is counterproductive for processing information and asked them to try to avoid negative feelings while taking the survey. Another group did not receive an instruction to avoid negative feelings. We again measured how much people perceived that systemic racism was the cause for certain facts.Participants told to avoid negative feelings were less likely to acknowledge systemic racism, consistent with the idea that wanting to avoid negative emotions can be a barrier to recognizing racism.We are currently testing whether increasing people’s acceptance of their negative feelings makes them more willing to acknowledge systemic racism. People in the U.S. have a particularly strong desire to avoid negative feelings compared to people in other cultural contexts such as Germany, China, Japan, Mexico, and Ecuador. It is possible that participants, especially in the U.S., need specific instructions on how to accept feeling negative and possibly also a good reason to do so when this goes against what they are used to doing. If we can effectively teach people to accept negative emotions, they may become more open to recognizing systemic racism as an important step in tackling racial inequalities.<h2>Conclusion</h2>Even though people might want to become anti-racist, feeling uncomfortable and upset might get tiresome. Robin DiAngelo used the term “White fragility” to describe many White people’s tendency to become defensive when their advantages in society are questioned. Studies suggest that prejudice reduction trainings have only modest success, possibly because White fragility comes up during these trainings and gets in the way of making these trainings effective.Our research suggests that it might be helpful to inform participants in prejudice reduction trainings that working toward racial justice is difficult and can feel uncomfortable, and that it is valid to feel upset and exhausted. Participants might be taught ways to accept negative emotions, and that each emotion has a purpose. Refusal to accept negative emotions that follow from acknowledging racism might get in the way of becoming anti-racist.For Further ReadingMurray, K., &amp; Koopmann-Holm, B. (2024). Facing discomfort: Avoided negative affect shapes the acknowledgment of systemic racism. Emotion, 24(6), 1522-1535. https://doi.org/10.1037/emo0001364Koopmann‐Holm, B., Beccari, A., &amp; Oosthuizen, M. (2024). Individual and cultural differences in compassion, noticing suffering, and well‐being: Consequences of wanting to avoid feeling negative. Social and Personality Psychology Compass, e70000. https://doi.org/10.1111/spc3.70000Birgit Koopmann-Holm is an Associate Professor of Psychology at Santa Clara University. She studies how wanting to avoid feeling bad affects perceptions of and responses to others’ suffering (including racism), conceptualizations of compassion, and health and well-being.Kara Murray holds a BS in Psychology from Santa Clara University. She has been conducting research in the Culture Impacts Emotion Laboratory (CIEL) at Santa Clara University under the supervision of Birgit Koopmann-Holm.</div></body>

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To Confront Racism, Face Your Own Discomfort

\"Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced.\" – James Arthur Baldwin. The killings of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, and others have forced many people to confront the deep-rooted racism in the United States. However, recognizing the problem of racism can be uncomfortable and upsetting—feelings some people want to avoid as much as possible. Certainly, most people do not like feeling bad, but our research suggests that people differ in how much they want to avoid feeling negative emotions. Is it possible that those who want to avoid negative feelings as much as possible might struggle to acknowledge racism?

"Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced." – James Arthur Baldwin. The killings of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, and others have forced many people to confront the deep-rooted racism in the United States. However, recognizing the problem of racism can be uncomfortable and upsetting—feelings some people want to avoid as much as possible. Certainly, most people do not like feeling bad, but our research suggests that people differ in how much they want to avoid feeling negative emotions. Is it possible that those who want to avoid negative feelings as much as possible might struggle to acknowledge racism?