Date of Award
6-26-2026
Date Published
August 2026
Degree Type
Dissertation
Degree Name
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
Department
Psychology
Advisor(s)
Sara Burke
Keywords
cognition;social media;stress;vicarious racism
Subject Categories
Psychology | Social and Behavioral Sciences | Social Psychology
Abstract
People are highly connected digitally through social media, and their motivations and purposes for using it vary, such as seeking connection, entertainment, and information. However, while being on these platforms, whether for entertainment or connection, people can be inadvertently exposed to witnessing others' experiences of racial discrimination via social media. These secondhand encounters of either witnessing or learning about racism directed at relatives, friends, and strangers is known as vicarious racism (Harrell, 2000). This current project sought to examine whether exposure to social media-based vicarious racism (SMVR) was associated with stress and changes in executive function. Across two studies, participants were randomly assigned to a social media timeline and read about either an ambiguous racial discrimination post or a control condition in which a white man reports a negative experience. Afterward, participants completed a stress measure (Study 1) and a working memory task (Study 2). Results of the study contribute to ongoing research suggesting that vicarious racism is a stressful experience; specifically, Study 1 found that Black people who read about subtle encounters of racism reported more stress than those in the white condition. Further, victim empathy mediated the association between SMVR and stress, such that those in SMVR reported more empathy and more empathy for the victim predicted more stress. In Study 2, we marginally replicated Study 1's results, such that participants reported more feelings of stress in the SMVR conditions than the white man condition, but only when using the composite stress score measure. However, we were unable to detect an enhancement or worsening of working memory performance. Overall, the study contributes to the burgeoning vicarious racism literature, suggesting that even subtle encounters (i.e., not blatant) can be distressing for a perceiver but not cognitively depleting.
Access
Open Access
Recommended Citation
McMillian, Minnie S., "Scrolling Through Stress: How Social Media-Based Vicarious Racism Shapes Stress and Executive Functioning?" (2026). Dissertations - ALL. 2378.
https://surface.syr.edu/etd/2378
