About this srcd poster session

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Panel information
Panel 23. Social, Emotional, Personality

Abstract

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The COVID-19 pandemic intensified historical racial discrimination against Asian American communities, which placed Asian American adolescents at risk for developing psychological, emotional, and peer difficulties (Teng et al., 2023). Therefore, the exploration of protective factors that can mitigate the long-term mental health impacts of racial discrimination stress for these adolescents is critical. Although coping strategies have been studied, the benefits of emotion regulation strategies, such as cognitive reappraisal and expressive suppression, which have been shown to influence the impact of other stressors on mental health (Gross & John, 2003), are less examined. Moreover, the effectiveness of these emotion regulation strategies may vary based on the cultural context (Hu et al., 2014). Cognitive reappraisal, which involves reframing negative events, has been found to buffer their negative effects across cultures. In contrast, expressive suppression, which involves inhibiting or suppressing outward displays of emotion (Gross, 1998), has been found to exacerbate the negative effects of stress; however, this finding is stronger in independent-focused (e.g., White), than interdependent-focused(e.g., Asians) groups, perhaps because emotion restraint is more valued in interdependent-focused cultures (Soto et al., 2011).
This study aimed to examine whether Asian American adolescents’: (1) experiences of racial discrimination predicted their internalizing problems one year later; and (2) cognitive reappraisal and expressive suppression strategies differentially moderated the effects of racial discrimination on their internalizing problems.
Asian American adolescents (N=273, Mage=14.79 years, SD=1.84; 50.9% female; 81% Chinese, 15.7% Korean, 3.3% Filipino) reported their racial discrimination experience frequency (Yoo & Lee, 2005), emotion regulation strategies (Gullone & Taffe, 2011, revised from Gross & John, 2003), and internalizing problems (Goodman, 1997) at Wave 1 (2022). One year later (Wave 2), Asian American adolescents reported their internalizing problems.
Controlling for adolescent gender and Wave 1 internalizing problems, Wave 1 racial discrimination frequency was positively associated with Wave 2 internalizing problems, r(265)=.28; p<.001. Moreover, cognitive reappraisal significantly moderated the association between racial discrimination and Wave 2 internalizing problems (F(1, 262)=7.03; p=.008), whereas expressive suppression did not, F(1, 262)=2.63; p=.106. Specifically, adolescents’ racial discrimination experiences were significantly associated with greater internalizing problems only at low and mean levels of cognitive reappraisal, but not at high levels (see Figure 1).
The finding suggests that Asian American adolescents’ conscious changing of the interpretation of events during the emotion-generation process can be applied to racial discrimination experiences to reduce the intensity of the resulting negative emotional responses and mitigate the internalizing of negative racial messages. Teng and colleagues (2023) also found that expressive suppression emotion regulation did not exacerbate the negative effects of racial discrimination experiences in Asian-heritage college students, perhaps because emotion suppression is more consistent with traditional Asian valuing of controlling emotional expressions (Su et al., 2015). These findings suggest that culturally sensitive interventions should consider emotional processes in fostering resilience among Asian American adolescents (Monte et al., 2023).

Author information

Author	Role
Li-Wen Wu, University of Maryland, Baltimore County	Presenting author
Charissa S. L. Cheah, University of Maryland, Baltimore County	Non-presenting author
Bumo Zhang, University of Maryland, Baltimore County	Non-presenting author
Warren Aguiling, University of Maryland, Baltimore County	Non-presenting author

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