Gendered racism, family and external shame, depressive symptoms, and alcohol use severity among Asian American men.

Abstract

Objective: We investigated whether gendered racism predicts depressive symptoms and alcohol use severity among Asian American men (AAM) through indirect relations via culture-specific family and external shame. Method: We analyzed convenience data from 409 AAM. Sample age (M = 21.24), nativity, ethnicity, education, income, and self-reported social class were diverse and controlled for. We path modeled direct associations among gendered racism and depressive symptoms and alcohol use severity, and their indirect (mediated) associations through family and external shame. Results: About 21% and 25% of the sample met the clinical cutoffs for depressive symptoms and risky alcohol use, respectively. Gendered racism predicted depressive symptoms indirectly via external shame, and predicted alcohol use severity directly and indirectly via family shame. The hypothesized model fits the data better than an alternative model with shame factors as predictors. Conclusion: Gendered racism is an insidious psychiatric risk factor for AAM and appears to exacerbate family and external shame, which may subsequently and divergently increase depressive symptoms and alcohol use severity. Findings highlight the role of cultural factors within gendered racism-related stress processes among AAM. Future research should consider longitudinal designs and additional mediating and outcome variables to examine the behavioral health sequelae of gendered racism among AAM. Public Significance StatementAsian American men (AAM) encounter gendered racism through denigrating and emasculating stereotypes and discrimination where such negative incidents are a psychiatric risk factor. We found that experiencing gendered racism was associated with greater shame from not meeting societal ideals (i.e., White hegemonic masculinity), which then exacerbated depressive symptoms among AAM. Experiencing gendered racism was also associated with increased feelings of bringing shame to the family, which in turn was associated with greater alcohol use severity among AAM. Our results highlighted culture-specific shame variables operating within intersectional race-and gender-related stress processes in this population.

Asian American Men’s Gendered Racial Socialization and Fragmented Masculinity: Interpretive Phenomenological Analysis

“…For many AAM, their parents—particularly those with a colonial mentality (Okazaki et al, 2008)—socialized them to assimilate into the White dominant culture and internalize the model minority myth (Chou & Feagin, 2015). Families that avoid, disavow, silence, and suppress general and gendered racist experiences may motivate AAM to adopt an internalizing, numbing, and passive coping style, resulting in emotional distress and shame (Keum & Choi, 2021). This psychiatrically deleterious pattern of avoidant coping (Iwamoto et al, 2010), restrictive emotionality (Liu, 2002), and interpersonal shame (Wong et al, 2014) may apply especially to AAM, who may lack identificatory male mentors or have assimilationist (Chua & Fujino, 1999; Tsuda, 2020) family members.…”

“…It is imperative to examine these trends in a culturally responsive manner (Wong et al, 2019) that centralizes the psychology of AAM and assesses operative, protective, and risk factors considering intersectional race-related stress and key lifespan sociocultural variables. AAM-focused psychological scholarship has indeed expanded (Iwamoto & Kaya, 2016) to encompass body image (Keum, 2016; Liao et al, 2020), gendered racism (Liu & Wong, 2018; Liu et al, 2018), interpersonal shame (Wong et al, 2014), and behavioral health outcomes (Keum & Choi, 2021; Keum et al, 2022). To augment this largely correlational and adult-focused literature, we sought to empirically derive a more comprehensive, developmentally informed, and unified model of AAM’s gendered racial socialization.…”

COVID-19 Racism, Depressive Symptoms, Drinking to Cope Motives, and Alcohol Use Severity Among Asian American Emerging Adults

“…Similarly, we encourage work that analyzes other empirically confirmed social-cognitive correlates of alcohol use severity—such as alcohol values and expectancies and peer influence ( Iwamoto et al, 2010 )—as well as substance use behavior of known public health import for Asian American subgroups, such as tobacco ( Lew & Tanjasiri, 2003 ; Rao et al, 2021 ). Finally, our framework should be expanded to test key cultural and intersectional variables ( Keum et al, 2022 ; Keum & Choi, 2021 )) germane to the link among COVID-19 racism and alcohol use outcomes, given that acculturative dynamics and gender appear to typify “high risk” drinkers among Asian American emerging adults ( Cook et al, 2015 ; Iwamoto et al, 2019 ).…”

Associations between gendered racism, racial identity, and nicotine use among Asian American men

“…Furthermore, in terms of the undesirable partner element of gendered racism, Asian American men report being perceived as undesirable and unattractive both in discriminatory interpersonal interactions as well as through racist media portrayals (Keum et al, 2023; Le & Kler, 2022). To our knowledge, however, the majority of studies that have investigated gendered racism within Asian American men have done so using scores summed from items assessing psychological emasculation, undesirable partner, and the additional facet of a perceived lack of leadership ability (e.g., Keum & Choi, 2023; Keum et al, 2022; Le, Bradshaw, Pease, et al, 2022). While these studies provide important perspective on the health consequences of Asian American men, it is also important to disaggregate gendered racism into its various forms and see how each may be uniquely associated with Asian American men's health outcomes (Le & Iwamoto, 2022; Liu & Wong, 2018).…”