This study aims to to test effects of sleep loss on perceived discrimination and cardiovascular functioning as well as identify moderators of the racial discrimination and objective sleep link in a sample of 80 African Americans.
African Americans (AAs) are disproportionately burdened by clinical and subclinical cardiovascular disease (CVD) when compared to European Americans (EAs), and while experiences of racial discrimination have been associated with CVD morbidity among AAs, including high daytime and nighttime blood pressure, the mechanisms underlying these associations are unclear. Poor sleep, such as short sleep duration and poor sleep continuity, may serve as a novel pathway; however, this possibility has not been rigorously tested. Evidence linking racial discrimination and poor sleep is mounting, however, largely derived from cross-sectional studies. Further, researchers have largely ignored the possibility of reciprocal effects. In a separate study (CHR#:18-24889) the investigators are testing the effects of perceived discrimination on sleep and nocturnal physiology. In this study, however, the investigators aim to test whether the other direction- whether experimental sleep loss affects one's perception and reaction to social interaction tasks with an outgroup member (White participant). To this end, the investigators will randomize 80 healthy AAs to one night of total sleep restriction or normal sleep in the sleep laboratory and then expose them to several standardized social experience tasks. These tasks include a digit span task, social evaluative speech task and cooperative task (i.e., playing Taboo), all of which will occur in the context of subtle negative evaluative feedback from the White confederate. Cardiovascular functioning as well as self-reported affect will be measured throughout the tasks and potential moderators, including socioeconomic status and race-based rejection sensitivity, will be tested. This study will fill fundamental gap in the scientific literature and provide the critical causal and mechanistic evidence necessary to address racial disparities in sleep and cardiovascular risk.
