Poster #67 - Distress-moderating effect of social support by nativity, ethnicity, and gender on youth outcomes

• In Event: 2-163 - Poster Session 08
  In Poster Session: PS 08 Section - Diversity, Equity & Social Justice

Integrative Statement

Purpose: Asian American youth experience detrimental effects of racial discrimination as much as any other racial/ethnic minority group in the U.S. (e.g., Yip, Gee, & Takeuchi, 2008), despite their so-called “honorary White” status. Research on social support has demonstrated the distress-alleviating role of social support associated with racial/ethnic minority status (e.g.,Thoits, 2011). Previous efforts are limited, however, by their narrow focus on the psychological tolls of racism and their tendency to ignore subtypes of support and the differential implications across social groups (Coll et al., 1996). The present study examines whether and how the burden of racial discrimination is moderated by two types of social support (i.e., emotional and instrumental support) with both internalizing (i.e., depressive symptoms), externalizing problems (i.e., substance use and antisocial behaviors), and academic performance (GPA) as outcomes. We further examine how these moderating effects vary by salient social positions: nativity status (i.e., U.S.-born vs. foreign-born), ethnicity (i.e., Filipino vs. Korean), and gender.

Methods: This study used data from the Midwest Longitudinal Study of Asian American Families Project that survey-interviewed 410 Korean and 379 Filipino American youth, N = 789, in 2014. The average age was 14.76 (SD=1.91) for Korean and 15.28 (SD=1.89) for Filipino American youth. Stepwise regression models first examined the contributions of (1) discrimination, emotional and instrument support to youth outcomes, (2) then two-way interaction effects, and (3) three-way interaction effects (i.e., types of support X discrimination X each social position) were added in a stepwise manner.

Results: Social support, regardless of its types, was predictive of healthy youth. In the face of racial discrimination, however, emotional support exacerbated the detrimental effect of racial discrimination, while instrumental support alleviated the psychological tolls of perceived racism. These differential effects under stressful life circumstance further varied by social positions. We found that i) the distress-alleviating effect of instrumental support on depressive symptoms was only salient among Filipino youth, ii) distress-exacerbating effect of emotional support and distress-alleviating effect of instrumental support on depressive symptoms were only prominent among female youth, iii) the distress-exacerbating effect of instrumental support on GPA was shown only among foreign-born youth.

Conclusions and Implications: The findings have both scholarly and practical implications related to healthy Asian American youth development. First, the findings underscore the multi-dimensional nature of social support and its influence. That is, instrumental support that involves concrete coping strategies, but not emotional support, seems to alleviate the burden of racial discrimination. The study also demonstrates that Filipino and female youth benefited more from instrumental support in reducing the psychological tolls of perceived racial discrimination. These findings are significant because Filipino American youth have reported more internalizing problems among Asian Americans. The findings also run counter to some claims that female youth are especially in need of emotion-focused support to address internalizing problems that may be more stereotypic. The present study indicates that interventions intended to minimize the negative impact of discrimination on youth development are unlikely to be successful without considering nuanced subgroup differences.

Authors

• Michael Park, University of Chicago
  Presenting Author

• Yoonsun Choi, University of Chicago
  Non-Presenting Author

• Julia R Henly, University of Chicago
  Non-Presenting Author