Project Summary/Abstract
Objective: The proposed study explores mediators and moderators of discrimination’s damaging effects on
sleep. Background: Millions of Americans have sleep problems that undermine health, social and work
functioning, and ultimately cost billions annually. Hence, understanding factors that hinder sleep is critical for
personal and societal health. One factor hindering sleep is discrimination. Racial discrimination increases
arousal, which disrupts sleep and contributes to health disparities between Black and White Americans.
Significance: Although discrimination and sleep problems are consistently linked, little is known about the
processes underlying this relation. Risk factors that lead to greater discrimination and consequently poorer
sleep are also unclear. Innovation: Prior studies linking discrimination and sleep have not considered
socioemotional processes, moderating conditions, and typically use cross-sectional self-report methods. By
integrating daily, in vivo ecological momentary assessments of discrimination and emotion invalidation with
objective sleep measures (i.e., actigraphy), the current work identifies processes underlying the crisis in race-
based sleep disparities. Specific Aims: With a Black American sample, the proposal tests whether
discrimination triggers emotion invalidation, termed social pain minimization (SPM), which negatively affects
sleep and whether these effects are largest for individuals that strongly active Black racial stereotypes in others
(i.e., Black racial phenotypicality; BRP). Expected Results: Within-participant experiences with discrimination
are predicted to increase SPM and sleep problems. SPM is hypothesized to partially mediate the effect of
discrimination on sleep. Finally, participants higher in BRP are expected to experience more discrimination and
consequently worse sleep than those lower in BRP. SPM is predicted to more strongly mediate discrimination’s
effect on sleep for those high (v. low) in BRP. Future Directions: The proposed work identifies intervening
processes and risk factors for the discrimination—sleep relation, these relations can then be targeted by future
interventions geared at fostering emotion validation to mitigate SPM’s corrosive effect on sleep.
