Fatimah Almutawa
Pronouns: She/her
Research Mentor(s): Ryan Szpiech
Research Mentor School/College/Department: Romance Languages/Judaic Studies / LSA
Program: UROP
Session: Session 6 (3:40pm – 4:30pm)
Authors: Jennah Ali-Khodja, Myles Durkee
Abstract
There is a lack of knowledge available about the health consequences of racial code-switching among the African American/Black population. This study examines the impact of racial code-switching while observing the physiological, psychological, and cognitive responses to a scenario that could encourage the participants to respond by code-switching. Racial code-switching is the practice of changing the way one communicates to mirror the social norms and attributes of others when engaging in scenarios where they interact and communicate with people from different racial backgrounds or settings. In this project, African American/Black students who participate in the experiment are required to deliver a 3-minute speech about mentorship via Zoom to a panel of White judges. It should be noted that the participants are not aware this zoom call is pre-recorded and the panel of White judges is purposefully acting hostile and unreactive during the participant’s speech to prompt possible code-switching to take place. Measurements such as cortisol (i.e., stress), blood pressure, heart rate, and respiration rate are tracked during the experiment to see if the code-switching causes any cognitive and physiological changes. BIOPAC Lab Systems and saliva samples are used to collect the data, which is then coded and analyzed. Data collection is still in progress, thus results are not yet available. However, the results obtained from this study can provide further knowledge about how racial minorities react to intimidation and pressure from others to engage in racial code-switching. The concepts researched in this project are pertinent to adopting a more all-inclusive and overarching perspective because facing the loss of one’s affiliation and status in a specific social group has various physiological consequences. In future studies, we plan to conduct additional research on the physiological effects of racial code-switching, except it will be among members of the same racial background.
