Racial Identity Matters: Discrimination & Well-Being: Robert Sellers | Colloquium | UCSD Psychol

On March 1, 2018, Dr. Robert Sellers, Vice Provost for Equity and Inclusion, Chief Diversity Officer, and the Charles D. Moody Collegiate Professor of Psychology and Education at the University of Michigan, delivered the first colloquium in that year's Special Series on the Science of Human Diversity. The talk was titled "Racial Identity Matters: The Role of Racial Discrimination in the Psychological Well-being of African Americans." In the video, the talk begins at 1:53, after the speaker introduction by Dr. Leslie Carver. The abstract is below.

Abstract:
African Americans face a myriad of challenges to their psychological well-being in a society that has traditionally devalued them because of their race. Chief among these challenges is the continued exposure to racially discriminatory events. Research findings have consistently indicated that African Americans report experiencing racial discrimination at non-trivial levels. Research has also consistently linked African Americansí experiences with racial discrimination to a variety of deleterious academic, social, and well-being outcomes. At the same time, there is also growing evidence that many African Americans are resilient in the face of these racial challenges. African Americansí racial identity attitudes seem to be a particularly important source of resilience. Racial identity refers to individuals' attitudes and beliefs regarding the significance and meaning of race in individuals' lives. The present talk will review findings from several studies related to the interplay among racial identity attitudes, racial discrimination, and well-being outcomes in African American adolescents and emerging adults. In doing so, we illustrate the importance of using a phenomenological approach to studying African Americansí experiences of racial discrimination. The talk concludes with several prescriptions for future research in the field.

About the Special Series on the Science of Human Diversity:
In this series of invited lectures, we will explore the psychological science of human diversity, spanning topics including the nature of human diversity, attitudes toward it, reasons for lack of diversity in the workplace, and how diversity affects creativity and the scientific process. Over three academic years (2016/2017 to 2018/2019) the series will feature nine talks from world famous experts on diversity science, who approach the topic from the perspectives of social psychology, organizational behavior, child development, and human decision making. This series will investigate case studies including gender, sexual orientation, political ideology, race, and religion, and how we can study the nature and impact of diversity in each case from a scientific perspective. This series is co-sponsored by the Office of the Vice Chancellor for Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion and the Division of Social Sciences.

Video Notes:
For privacy reasons, audience questions were edited or omitted from this video. Additionally, for technical reasons, there is a brief pause in the audio at 2 minutes and a few seconds were skipped at approximately 10 and a half minutes into the video.

For more information about the Special Series on the Science of Human Diversity and other psychology department colloquia, please visit:
http://www.psychology.ucsd.edu..../events/diversity.ht
http://www.psychology.ucsd.edu..../events/colloquium.h

For more information about Dr. Sellers, please visit: https://odei.umich.edu/robert-sellers/