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Colorblind racial attitudes, which minimize the importance of race, have been identified as a barrier to understanding systemic racism and fostering empathy towards people of color (POC). This study aimed to examine the relationship between emotion dysregulation and White people's ethnocultural empathy and warmth towards people of color, and to explore the potential moderating role of colorblind racial attitudes. The study utilized data from 511 White participants (ages 19-50) who completed the Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale (DERS), Colorblind Racial Attitudes Scale (CoBRAS), Scale of Ethnocultural Empathy (SEE), and a feeling thermometer scale measuring warmth towards POC. Participants were categorized into upper, middle, and lower quartiles based on CoBRAS scores. Moderation analyses were conducted using the PROCESS macro for SPSS. Higher colorblind racial attitudes were associated with lower ethnocultural empathy (b = -0.8297, p < 0.0001) and warmth towards POC (b = -13.7, p < 0.0001). Contrary to predictions, lower attitudes demonstrated a negative correlation between emotion dysregulation and ethnocultural empathy. However, lower colorblind attitudes exhibited higher empathy and warmth compared to those with higher colorblind attitudes when emotion dysregulation was held constant. The interaction between emotion dysregulation and colorblind racial attitudes did not significantly impact ethnocultural empathy or warmth towards POC. The findings suggest that while higher emotion dysregulation did not directly impact our outcome variables, colorblind racial attitudes played a significant role in moderating these outcomes. Future research should investigate the development of anti-racism interventions targeting colorblind racial attitudes and explore behavioral responses to racism.
Veltre et al. (Thu,) studied this question.