The Culture of Dissemblance Among Black American Women: A Mixed Methods Assessment

Disparities in the treatment of mood and stress disorders like posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) may partially reflect a limited culturally informed understanding of emotional processing. The culture of dissemblance (COD) describes how American Black women learned to mask their emotional expression as a protective mechanism within a society that places them at greater risk of psychosocial stressors while invalidating their emotional experience. This mixed methods study examined COD among forty-nine Black women (ages 40–55), who completed a semi-structured interview assessing emotional engagement alongside self-report measures of emotion regulation, trauma exposure, PTSD symptoms, racial discrimination, and Black identity. Thematic analysis indicated that participants experienced negative judgments of their emotional expression and learned to monitor emotional responses for self-protection. 83.7% of women reported less emotional expression in public with 40.8% of women identified the workplace as the primary site for emotional masking. Interview-based COD endorsement associated with belief in negative public perception of Black people but not with the other variables of interests. Treatment approaches should center Black women's cultural knowledge to address mental health disparities.