Understanding the Link Between Perceived Discrimination and Feeling Confused

How much might the amount of discrimination or prejudice directed at you in your life relate to feeling confused right now? When people report higher levels of prejudice aimed at them, do they also tend to report more moment-to-moment confusion? Could there be a meaningful association between perceived discrimination and current confusion in everyday self-reports? For instance, perhaps experiencing prejudice creates mixed social signals and competing expectations that can coincide with feeling mentally unsettled, although it’s also plausible that confusion makes negative interactions feel harder to interpret and therefore more likely to be perceived as discriminatory. Understanding whether perceived discrimination is linked with feeling confused can be important for interpreting lived experience, shaping supportive conversations, and guiding more accurate mental health screening.

We've analyzed data from a study on 492 people in the the U.S., which we've used to explore these questions. Study participants were asked "How much discrimination or prejudice is directed at you now in your life?" and also to what extent they agree with the statement "I feel confused right now".

Here are the results:

To further explore the relationship between these two items, you can explore the pages for either statement on PersonalityMap:

• How much discrimination or prejudice is directed at you now in your life?
• I feel confused right now

Or you can explore over 1 million human correlations spanning personality, demographics, behaviors and beliefs at PersonalityMap.io.