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Justice for all? Beliefs about justice for self and others and telomere length in African Americans.

September 5, 2018 by IISBR

Background:

OBJECTIVE: Believing in justice can protect health. Among marginalized racial minorities however, both endorsing and rejecting beliefs about justice might be critical. The current research examined links between African Americans’ beliefs about justice for self and for others and telomere length (TL)-an indicator of biological aging that is increasingly implicated in racial health disparities, with shorter telomeres indicating poorer health.

METHOD: Healthy African Americans (N = 118; 30% male; M age = 31.63 years) completed individual differences measures of justice beliefs for self and others and then provided dried blood spot samples that were assayed for TL.

RESULTS: We expected that a belief in justice for self would be positively associated with TL, whereas a belief in justice for others would be negatively associated. A significant 3-way interaction with chronological age confirmed this hypothesis-among older African Americans, TL was positively associated with believing in justice for self, but only when this belief was accompanied by a weak endorsement of the belief in justice for others.

CONCLUSION: Findings underscore that for racial minorities, health might be best protected when justice beliefs are both endorsed and rebuffed.

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Tagged With: african americans, health, justice, minorities, telomere length, telomeres

Telomere length and procedural justice predict stress reactivity responses to unfair outcomes in African Americans.

October 8, 2017 by IISBR

Background:

This experiment demonstrates that chromosomal telomere length (TL) moderates response to injustice among African Americans. Based on worldview verification theory – an emerging psychosocial framework for understanding stress – we predicted that acute stress responses would be most pronounced when individual-level expectancies for justice were discordant with justice experiences. Healthy African Americans (N=118; 30% male; M age=31.63 years) provided dried blood spot samples that were assayed for TL, and completed a social-evaluative stressor task during which high versus low levels of distributive (outcome) and procedural (decision process) justice were simultaneously manipulated. African Americans with longer telomeres appeared more resilient (in emotional and neuroendocrine response-higher DHEAs:cortisol) to receiving an unfair outcome when a fair decision process was used, whereas African Americans with shorter telomeres appeared more resilient when an unfair decision process was used. TL may indicate personal histories of adversity and associated stress-related expectancies that influence responses to injustice.

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Tagged With: dheas, health disparities, justice, salivary cortisol, salivary dheas, stress reactivity, telomeres, worldview verification theory

UCI School of Social Ecology
Social Ecology I
Irvine, CA 92697-7050
www.uci.edu
www.socialecology.uci.edu

UCI Program in Public Health
UCI Health Sciences Complex
856 Health Sciences Quad
Irvine, CA 92697-3957
www.uci.edu www.publichealth.uci.edu

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