RAPID: Influences of the Coronavirus (COVID-19) Outbreak on Racial Discrimination, Identity Development and Socialization

截至2020年2月23日，持续的冠状病毒（COVID-19）爆发已导致超过78,811人感染，至少2,445人死亡。除了这次疫情造成的悲剧性健康损失外，针对美国少数族裔居民的袭击也越来越多。冠状病毒的爆发加剧了人们对健康的恐惧所掩盖的刻板印象（例如，吃“奇怪”的食物、不卫生的生活方式、被疾病所困扰）。种族歧视大大降低了幸福感，增加了心理痛苦以及身心健康。大多数关于种族主义对身份认同、心理弹性和父母社会化影响的研究，都集中在青少年和初成人的歧视上。这项创新的跨学科研究将极大地促进我们对有三个不同年龄组儿童的家庭在应对急性社会压力时的风险和弹性的理解，这三个年龄组分别是幼儿期（4-7岁）、幼儿期（8-11岁）和青春期早期至中期（12-15岁）。研究结果将确定影响少数种族父母及其子女身份形成的关键发展和社会过程。COVID-19疫情对他们的社会身份造成的严重但长期的威胁，也可能为这一过程的一般性质提供洞见。这个跨学科团队由一名文化发展科学家、一名学校心理学家和一名计算机科学家组成，将研究COVID-19种族歧视的多种形式及其对少数民族父母和儿童身份发展和适应的后续影响。该研究将重点关注父母如何在2020年初和6-9个月后对这一事件做出反应，让孩子们就种族和身份问题进行社交。还将确定父母和儿童适应的保护因素。此外，将分析与疫情有关的社交媒体（Twitter）帖子的大规模文本，以解释公众舆论、焦虑和歧视态度如何随着疫情的高峰和消退而演变，并提供全年更大的公共社会话语气候的客观指标。传染病将继续在全球出现和重新出现，它们对心理和社会健康的负面影响尚未得到充分研究，但却非常严重，导致严重的社会和经济后果。从这项研究中获得的知识可能有助于告知可以在未来类似事件中促进目标边缘化群体和广大公众福祉的服务和教育类型。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

The ongoing Coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak has, as of February 23rd, 2020, resulted in more than 78,811 infected and at least 2,445 deaths. Beyond the tragic health toll of this outbreak, there has been increased targeting of minority groups of U.S. residents. The Coronavirus outbreak has refueled stereotypes (e.g., eating “strange” foods, having unsanitary lifestyles, being disease-ridden) that are veiled under health-related fears. Racial discrimination significantly decreases well-being and increases psychological distress as well as mental and physical health. Most studies on the effects of racism on identity, resilience, and parental socialization, have focused on discrimination among adolescents and emerging adults. This innovative interdisciplinary study will significantly advance our understanding of risk and resilience in response to acute social stress among families with children in three different age groups, early childhood (4-7 years), middle childhood (8-11 years) and early-to-mid adolescence (12-15 years). Findings will identify key developmental and social processes that influence how identities of racial minority parents and their children are formed. The influence of an acute but prolonged threat to their social identities resulting from the COVID-19 outbreak may provide insight into the general nature of this process as well. This interdisciplinary team comprising a cultural developmental scientist, a school psychologist, and a computer scientist will study multiple forms of COVID-19 racial discrimination and the subsequent impact on the identity development and adjustment of minority parents and children. The study will focus on how parents socialize their children about issues of race and identity in reaction to this event at the early part of 2020 and again 6-9 months later. Protective factors for adjustment in parents and children will also be identified. In addition, large scale texts of outbreak-related social media (Twitter) posts will be analyzed to account for how public opinion, anxiety, and discriminatory attitudes evolve with the peaking and fading of this epidemic and provide objective indicators of the larger public social discourse climate across the year. Infectious diseases will continue to emerge and re-emerge globally, and their negative impact on psychological and social health is understudied but highly significant, leading to both significant social and economic consequences. Knowledge from this research may help inform the types of services and education that can promote well-being in targeted marginalized groups and the larger public during future similar events.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.