Date of Award

5-2024

Document Type

Campus Access Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Arts (MA)

Department

Clinical Psychology

First Advisor

Lizabeth Roemer

Second Advisor

Abbey Eisenhower

Third Advisor

Karen Suyemoto

Abstract

Studies have found that Asian Americans are unwilling to seek professional treatment for psychological symptoms despite reporting significant psychological distress and prefer seeking social support from friends and family (Han & Pong, 2015; Hung, 2005; Masuda & Boone, 2011; Singh, 2015). Asian Americans have been continuously exposed to racist events that are detrimental to well-being, with a notable increase during the COVID-19 pandemic (Armanta et al., 2013; Liu & Suyemoto, 2016; Stop AAPI Hate, 2021). This study sought to examine the degree to which emotional social support is associated with psychological symptoms and well-being, and whether emotional social support would moderate the positive relation between experiencing racism and psychological symptoms, and the negative relation between experiencing racism and well-being. We found that emotional social support was significantly negatively associated with psychological symptoms and significantly positively associated with well-being, but not above and beyond the effects of general social support. We also found that emotional social support did not moderate the relation between experiencing racism and either of the outcome variables, and that the expected relations between experiencing racism and the outcome variables were not found in this sample. Limitations in this study included a possible lack of generalizability due to our participants predominately identifying as cisgendered women, and a lack of specificity in measuring anti-Asian racism in particular in our measures. Future studies would benefit from recruiting a more representative sample, and including measures that assess anti-Asian racism specifically and across several domains of interaction.

Comments

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