Examining the Effects of General Stress and Racial Discrimination Stress on Executive Function Among Black, Latinx, and Asian Young Adults: The Moderating Role of Ethnic/Racial Identity

Although stress is a common occurrence among all young adults, Black, Latinx, and Asian young adults face the additional burden of experiencing racial discrimination stress. These stressors have been demonstrated to be associated with adverse outcomes across health, behavioral, and social domains where EF is implicated as a possible mechanism. Therefore, the current study examined the impact of general (non-race-related) stress and racial discrimination stress on updating, a component of EF, as well as the moderating role of ethnic/racial identity (ERI) among a sample of Black, Latinx, and Asian young adults. Contrary to hypotheses, findings from the study indicated that participants had faster reaction times on an EF task following the racial discrimination condition than the general (non-race-related) stress vignettes. Also, findings suggest that participants had better accuracy on an EF task following the subtle racial discrimination condition in comparison to the blatant racial discrimination condition, which was counter to previous literature. ERI did not moderate any of these relationships. These findings suggest that EF may be enhanced during experiences of racial discrimination stress which could be the result of developing coping mechanisms over time