National epidemiological data suggest that between 51% and 77% of adults have experienced a traumatic event in their lifetime (Smith & Cottler, 2018). Experiencing a traumatic event may result in changes in beliefs about the safety of the world (i.e., world assumptions), which has been associated with risk for psychopathology, including post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD; Bruggen et al., 2018; Janoff-Bulman, 1985; Schuler & Boals, 2016). The process of adjusting beliefs after a traumatic event has been described in the theory of shattered assumptions in which a traumatic event disturbs a person’s positive beliefs about the self and the world (Janoff-Bulman, 1985). World assumptions theory suggests that the development of PTSD is influenced by the integration of the new information learned from the traumatic event with existing knowledge about the world (Janoff-Bulman, 1989). This theory purports that some people may respond to a traumatic event by adjusting their beliefs about the safety and predictability of the world. Longitudinal data support that the exposure to traumatic events negatively impacts world assumptions (Schuler & Boals, 2016). Given the strong link between traumatic events, world assumptions, and psychopathology (Anders et al., 2014; Edmondson et al., 2011; Lilly et al., 2015), it is critical to expand our understanding of traumatic events and include other adverse experiences that may impact world assumptions including factors related to racism. Stressors prevalent among People of Color (POC) that may be experienced as traumatic include racial discrimination and neighborhood disadvantage.

Increasingly, scholars have acknowledged that the current conceptualization of trauma (i.e., Criterion A for PTSD, which requires experiencing, witnessing, or dealing with a highly stressful event that involves actual death, threatened death, or serious injury to themselves or someone else; American Psychiatric Association, 2013) may be too narrow to adequately capture the range of potentially traumatizing events, including traumatizing experiences of racism (Holmes et al., 2016; Williams et al., 2018). Racial discrimination is the most commonly used indicator of interpersonal racism in research (Williams et al., 2019). There is considerable evidence demonstrating the deleterious impact of racial discrimination on the well-being of POC, generally (Carter et al., 2019), and the association between racial discrimination and PTSD, more specifically (Cheng & Mallinckrodt, 2015; Dale & Safren, 2019; Flores et al., 2010; Kirkinis et al., 2018; Loo et al., 2001; Pieterse et al., 2010; Torres & Taknint, 2015; Watson et al., 2016; Wei et al., 2012). Some studies have even demonstrated that racial discrimination is predictive of PTSD above and beyond exposure to Criterion A traumatic events (Bird et al., 2021; Carter et al., 2019; Loo et al., 2001).

In understanding racial discrimination as a potentially traumatizing experience (Carter et al., 2019; Holmes et al., 2016; Williams et al., 2018), it would also be important to test whether racial discrimination is associated with world assumptions in a similar manner as events that fall under the definition of trauma in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5). Research has demonstrated that exposure to racial discrimination is, in fact, associated with beliefs in an unjust world (Dale & Safren, 2019; Liang & Borders, 2012; Liang & Molenaar, 2016; Schaafsma, 2013) as well as decreased sense of control (Ben et al., 2014; Macedo et al., 2019; Moradi & Hasan, 2004; Moradi & Risco, 2006; Peterson et al., 2020). A strength of this body of literature is its inclusion of a range of populations with varying racial backgrounds (e.g., Black women living with HIV, Arab American and Latine community members, Aboriginal pregnant women, undergraduate Students of Color; Dale & Safren, 2019; Macedo et al., 2019; Moradi & Hasan, 2004; Moradi & Risco, 2006; Liang & Molenaar, 2016). However, most studies examine the association been racial discrimination and world assumptions within a single racial group (e.g., Dale & Safren, 2019; Moradi & Hasan. 2004; Moradi & Risco, 2006) or among Participants of Color more broadly, without considering the possible distinctions between racial/ethnic groups (e.g., Liang & Borders, 2012; Liang & Molenaar, 2016).

Neighborhood disadvantage is another adverse experience that is prevalent among POC and has the potential to negatively impact world assumptions but has yet to be investigated. Given structural racism, POC are more likely to live in disadvantaged neighborhoods (Riley, 2018). Neighborhood disadvantage can involve experiencing low levels of neighborhood cohesion or support and high rates of neighborhood violence, crime, drug deals, and poverty and may be experienced as traumatic. For example, results from a recent longitudinal study suggest that neighborhood safety, which was reported at a higher rate in Black relative to White communities, predicted post-traumatic stress symptoms (Andrews et al., 2019). Consistent with world assumptions theory, it is possible that living in poverty or an unsafe neighborhood contributed to inconsistencies between their experience and their beliefs about the self and sense of safety in the world, thus resulting in post-traumatic stress symptoms. However, research examining the association between neighborhood disadvantage and world assumptions is limited. One study, using the same data as the current study, examined the profiles of adversity including neighborhood disadvantage and found that profiles with very high neighborhood adversity scored lowest on the World Assumptions Questionnaire (WAQ; Kaler, 2009) subscales: controllability of events and trustworthiness and goodness of people (Woerner et al., 2020). These findings suggest that neighborhood disadvantage may be closely linked to these two aspects of world assumptions. However, it remains to be known whether these associations differ when exclusively examining POC, who may also experience racial discrimination. Although prior research has examined neighborhood disadvantage in the form of neighborhood safety or violence (Andrews et al., 2019), no study has examined whether the association with world assumptions differ by form of low neighborhood disadvantage (i.e., safety or support).

In summary, there is a need to expand how we think of trauma to include adverse experiences related to racism like racial discrimination and neighborhood disadvantage and explore how they might also impact world assumptions. Additional research is needed to (a) examine the association of racial discrimination and neighborhood disadvantage with world assumptions separately among multiple Groups of Color to capture potential between-group differences, (b) utilize a measure that allows for investigation of the multiple facets of world assumptions, and (c) assess the impact of racial discrimination and neighborhood disadvantage on world assumptions above and beyond exposure to events that fall under the DSM-5 definition of trauma, as has been done in studying the impact of racial discrimination on PTSD (e.g., Loo et al., 2001). Thus, the objective of the current study was to identify the possible associations of racial discrimination and neighborhood disadvantage with world assumptions among Black, Latine¹, and Asian young adults and whether these associations were independent of other trauma exposure. We hypothesized that racial discrimination and neighborhood disadvantage would be associated with more negative world assumptions across all groups. Whether these associations held when accounting for other trauma exposure was exploratory.