Support for Black Lives Matter may buffer against the psychological toll of traumatic viral videos

New research provides evidence that support for the Black Lives Matter movement may help protect Black young adults from the negative mental health effects of viewing videos depicting police violence. While exposure to racialized traumatic media is generally linked to higher anxiety, the new study suggests that connection to the social movement buffers against depression and anxiety. The findings were published in the Journal of Black Psychology.

The year 2020 marked a significant period of social unrest and visibility regarding anti-Black police brutality in the United States. The killings of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor reignited the Black Lives Matter movement and led to a surge in media coverage. This coverage frequently included graphic videos of Black individuals being harmed or killed.

Scholars refer to this specific type of content as racialized traumatic media. Past inquiries have established that repeated exposure to such images acts as a stressor for Black Americans. It contributes to poor mental health outcomes. This includes symptoms similar to post-traumatic stress disorder.

The authors of the current study sought to understand the nuances of how this media consumption impacts Black young adults. They aimed to move beyond simply establishing a link between media and distress. They wanted to identify factors that might worsen the impact or provide resilience.

“During 2020, we were collecting data on the impact of the pandemic on Black young adults’ health. As many readers are likely aware, there was a lot of attention on the ‘dual pandemic’ being raised in 2020 – that is, the impacts of racism and COVID-19 on Black people’s health in the United States,” said study author Katarina E. AuBuchon, a research scientist at the MedStar Health Research Institute.

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“After the death of George Floyd, there were increasing surges of videos that were highly traumatizing circulating in the media. We wanted to understand how these might impact the health of Black people in our sample. So, we put together some measures to add to our survey at the time.”

Specifically, the researchers focused on the potential protective role of sociopolitical involvement. The Black Lives Matter movement emphasizes community, resistance, and the fight against structural racism. The research team hypothesized that supporting this movement might offer a psychological buffer. They reasoned that it could provide a framework for processing injustice and fostering solidarity.

The study also examined the role of Race-Based Traumatic Stress. This concept describes the emotional injury and stress reactions resulting from experiences of racism. The researchers anticipated that individuals who were already suffering from high levels of this stress would be more vulnerable to the harms of traumatic media.

The research team recruited 167 Black young adults to participate in the study. The participants resided in the Eastern Mid-Atlantic region of the United States. This area includes Washington D.C., Virginia, Maryland, North Carolina, and Pennsylvania.

Data collection took place between November 2020 and January 2021. This timing was significant as it followed the intense protests of the previous summer. The participants completed an online survey assessing various psychological and behavioral measures.

To measure exposure to racialized traumatic media, participants reported how often they viewed specific types of content since March 2020. This content included videos of people of their race being harmed by police. It also included distressing news about police violence and negative media regarding protests.

The survey measured support for the Black Lives Matter movement using a rating scale. This scale ranged from no support to strong support with active involvement. The researchers also utilized a standardized scale to assess Race-Based Traumatic Stress symptoms.

Participants reported their current levels of anger, anxiety, and depression. They also indicated whether they had consumed alcohol in the past 30 days. The analysis controlled for variables such as gender, income, and education to isolate the effects of the media exposure.

The results indicated a direct association between the frequency of viewing traumatic media and increased anxiety. “We found, consistent with other studies on the topic, that exposure to traumatic videos were harmful to Black young adults’ mental health,” AuBuchon told PsyPost. “This is not surprising, particularly in the context of other work on the topic. For example, we previously found that for young women in favor of abortion rights in trigger law states, exposure to media about the overturn of Roe v. Wade related to higher alcohol use intentions.”

Importantly, the relationship between traumatic media exposure and mental health was not uniform across all participants. It varied significantly based on their level of support for the Black Lives Matter movement.

For participants who reported low levels of support for the movement, higher exposure to traumatic media predicted significantly worse outcomes. These individuals reported higher levels of both anxiety and depression as their media consumption increased.

In contrast, this negative relationship was not observed among participants with high support for Black Lives Matter. For these individuals, increased exposure to traumatic media was not statistically linked to higher anxiety or depression. This suggests that alignment with the movement provided a buffering effect.

The researchers propose that the movement may facilitate coping. It creates a sense of collective identity and purpose. This can transform feelings of helplessness into feelings of empowerment or solidarity.

“We found emerging evidence that activism could provide a way to help mitigate the negative effects of this traumatic media exposure,” AuBuchon explained. “This is important because it gives us a line of intervention – and one that can be important for the health of the community! So, engaging in community work and getting involved could be one key way to help promote health in periods of increasing ‘doomscrolling.’ However – our measure wasn’t perfect and this is only one study. Future work should validate our findings.”

“I also think it’s important to contextualize this work in the midst of evidence of consistent inequities in mental and physical health for Black young adults. Our work contributes to a broader literature that demonstrates how racism has resounding impacts on health for Black people in America.”

The study also found distinct patterns regarding alcohol use. Approximately 57 percent of the sample reported drinking alcohol in the past month. The analysis showed that traumatic media exposure predicted a higher likelihood of alcohol use, but only for a specific subgroup.

This link was significant only for participants who already had high levels of Race-Based Traumatic Stress. For these individuals, viewing graphic content appeared to exacerbate their existing trauma. This likely triggered a need to cope through substance use.

The findings regarding anger presented a different pattern. The researchers found that higher levels of Race-Based Traumatic Stress were associated with increased anger. This relationship was actually stronger for those with high support for Black Lives Matter.

While increased anger might typically be viewed as a negative outcome, the authors offer a nuanced interpretation. In the context of social justice, anger can serve as a rational response to oppression. It functions as an approach-oriented emotion that motivates action and activism.

The Anger Activism Model suggests that anger, when paired with a belief in one’s ability to make change, drives participation in collective action. Consequently, the higher anger reported by supporters of the movement may represent a mobilization response rather than solely a symptom of distress.

“We think future work should explore how channeling anger into action may be a way to help dissipate negative impacts of anger,” AuBuchon said.

The study provides evidence that the impact of online trauma is not the same for everyone. It highlights how individual history and social connection shape psychological responses. However, as with all research, the study does have limitations.

The research utilized a cross-sectional design. This means the data represents a single snapshot in time. Consequently, the researchers cannot definitively claim that media exposure caused the mental health changes. It is possible that individuals with higher anxiety were more likely to seek out or fixate on distressing news.

Future studies could use longitudinal designs to track these effects over time. Real-time data collection could better capture how individuals cope immediately following a highly publicized traumatic event.

“I want to emphasize the rigor of this work, particularly in the context we are currently conducting science in today,” AuBuchon said. “We went through several rounds of rigorous peer review – honestly one of the most intense peer-review sessions I’ve been through! Reviewers highlighted concerns and significantly strengthened our manuscript by the time it was published.”

“Many people today might jump to conclusions that this work was ‘politically motivated’ – but actually this work is driven by theory and existing empirical data that demonstrate consistent inequitable health for Black people in the United States, and that traumatic media exposure likely contributes. I would encourage skeptical readers to dive into more than just this one study, and read some of the sources we cited in our introduction. The science is clear that racialized inequities in mental and physical health exist, and that racism contributes.”

“One other thing I would add is that we don’t see media exposure as solely an individual-level behavior,” AuBuchon continued. “As many of us are aware, our social media algorithms are carefully curated to increase engagement at the cost of mental health for social media users. So, when we think about interventions, we have to think broader than individual-level behaviors as well.”

The study has important implications for mental health practitioners. It suggests that therapists working with Black clients should be aware of the cumulative toll of viral videos. Exposure to police killings in the media is not a passive event but a potential activator of past trauma.

The findings imply that encouraging connection to social movements could be a viable therapeutic tool. For some clients, engaging in activism might serve as an adaptive coping mechanism.

“Just like our inclusion of BLM in our study to understand buffering factors, I’m really interested in what actions we can take to promote more equitable health,” AuBuchon added. “My research focus has moved from broader questions about racism’s influence on health to a narrower focus on the clinic and how we can promote equitable health through clinic-level interventions.

“As a postdoctoral fellow and now a research scientist, my work is focusing on how we can use social psychology theory and methods to identify our treatment gaps. One area I’ve really honed in on that’s deeply influenced by social cognition is communication, and psychological safety through environmental cues. So the question for me has become – what interventions can we design to promote equitable clinical environments, to lead to better patient outcomes? ”

The study, “Racialized Traumatic Media and Black Young Adults’ Health: The Moderating Relationship of Race-Based Traumatic Stress and Black Lives Matter Support,” was authored by Katarina E. AuBuchon, Michelle L. Stock, Taylor-Jo Russo, Erika Braun, Charlotte Hagerman, and Lisa Bowleg.