Examining the effectiveness of positive reappraisal in the context of discrimination.

ABSTRACT: Positive reappraisal has been shown to be a generally effective emotion regulation strategy associated with multiple indices of greater psychological functioning. There are, however, some emotion-eliciting events, such as discrimination, that may not lend themselves to favorable alternative interpretations or which have relatively fewer affordances. In such instances, a reappraisal strategy could lose its effectiveness. We conducted an experimental test of this hypothesized ineffectiveness of positive reappraisal within a discriminatory context. Participants were 404 Black and Latine college students randomly assigned to imagine being the recipient of a rude or discriminatory comment and immediately afterward were asked to either ruminate about or positively reappraise the event. Overall,

SUBMITTER: Soto JA 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11729464 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature