Bicultural stress and perceived benefits among Asian Americans: The roles of cognitive flexibility and making positive sense of adversity.

Abstract

Based on theories of stress-related growth, this study examined whether making positive sense of adversity mediated the associations between bicultural stress and perceived benefits (i.e., mediation hypotheses), and whether cognitive flexibility moderated the association between bicultural stress and making positive sense of adversity (i.e., moderation hypothesis) and the above mediation effects (i.e., moderated mediation hypotheses). Participants were 207 Asian American college students from an East Coast public university. Results from PROCESS supported all hypotheses. First, making positive sense of adversity mediated the relationships between bicultural stress and the perceived benefits of enhanced self-efficacy and increased compassion. Second, cognitive flexibility significantly moderated the association between bicultural stress and making positive sense of adversity. Specifically, this association was not significant for those with higher cognitive flexibility, but making positive sense of adversity was consistently high across all levels of bicultural stress for those with higher cognitive flexibility. However, the association between bicultural stress and making positive sense of adversity was significantly positive for those with lower cognitive flexibility. Third, the significant index of moderated mediation further supported that cognitive flexibility significantly moderated the mediation effects of bicultural stress on perceived benefits through making positive sense of adversity. Counseling implications and future research directions are discussed. What is the public significance of this article?This study suggests that having positive beliefs about adversity helps Asian Americans who experience the challenges of juggling between Asian and American cultures (i.e., bicultural stress) to feel more self-efficacious and compassionate toward those in similar situations. Furthermore, higher bicultural stress can provide an opportunity for growth for Asian Americans who are less able to identify alternative ways of resolving their constant struggle between Asian and American norms and expectations.

Intergenerational cultural conflict, assertiveness, and adjustment among Asian Americans.

“…Second, another conceptual reason that explains the assertiveness findings is that our current sample likely consists of bicultural individuals who are able to integrate expectations from both Asian and mainstream U.S. societies (Wei, Wang, Ko, Liu, & Botello, 2019). Our participants were either born in the United States or immigrants to the United States before the age of 12.…”

The creativity ethos: A palette of benevolent processes and outcomes

“…Psychological flexibility can also contribute to physical well-being, such as being associated with faster rehabilitation from injuries (DeGaetano et al, 2016) and better response to therapy for chronic pain (Lin et al, 2018). Cognitive flexibility can equally impact psychological well-being; it is a moderator of the relationship between having trait anxiety and experiencing depressive symptoms (Wang et al, 2019) and between stress and seeing the positive side of negative events (Wei et al, 2019). Furthermore, older individuals who are cognitively flexible are more likely to have a healthy social life (Aghajani & Samadifard, 2019).…”

Inclusive Leadership: How Leaders Sustain or Discourage Work Group Inclusion

“…Bicultural employees also report anxiety, compartmentalization, psychological conflict, and identity conflict (Bell, 1990) as well as marginality and maladjustment (Rudmin, 2003). Since employees are only partially included in an assimilation framework, they may be less socially engaged (Dawson, 2006), experience bicultural stress (Wei, Want, Ko, Liu, & Botello, 2019), and experience emotional exhaustion from continually having to put on a façade of conformity (Hewlin, 2009). Although we use the example of race here, the assimilation requirements can be for other marginalized social identities such as gender, sexual orientation, or nationality.…”