Beyond Virality: Police Brutality Exposure and Protective Factors among Black College Students

This study examined the relationship between exposure to police brutality on social media and race-based stress among Black college freshmen, as well as the potential moderating effects of racial identity and racial socialization. A national sample of 292 first-year Black college students (151 females, 141 males) completed a Qualtrics survey measuring demographic characteristics, police brutality exposure, race-based stress, racial socialization, and racial identity. Guided by Critical Race Theory (CRT) and Social Identity Theory (SIT), this study situates Black college students’ responses to police brutality exposure within broader structural and identity-based processes that shape interpretations of racialized violence. Analyses showed that race-based stress was negatively correlated with both racial identity and racial socialization, suggesting their potential protective roles. An unexpected negative correlation also emerged between exposure to police brutality and race-based stress, although this association did not remain significant in multivariate regression models. Neither racial identity nor racial socialization significantly moderated the exposure–stress relationship. Findings highlight the complexity of social media as both a site of racial trauma and resilience. Counseling implications, measurement limitations, and directions for future research on vicarious racial trauma in digital contexts are discussed.