Somatic Symptoms, Perceived Discrimination, and Depressive Symptoms Across Social Class Among Asian American College Students: A Moderated Mediation Model

Somatic symptoms-the expression of physical distress with accompanying life dysfunctions-are one of the common ways to communicate mental distress among Asian Americans (Grover & Ghosh, 2014). The present study aimed to explore how somatic symptoms are associated with the constructs relevant to the experiences of Asian Americans as a minoritized group in the United States, namely, perceived discrimination, depressive symptoms, and social class. The biopsychosocial model of racism (Clark et al., 1999) served as the framework to hypothesize that depressive symptoms would serve as a mediator on the relationship between perceived discrimination and somatic symptoms. Also, based on both the biopsychosocial model and the ideas on intersectionality, social class as a moderator on the relationship between perceived discrimination and depressive symptoms was posited. Thus, a moderated mediation model was tested with data from 214 Asian American college students using SPSS PROCESS Macro (Hayes, 2013). The results showed that when discrimination was perceived, the participants in the lower social class were more likely to experience depressive symptoms than those in the upper social class and that depressive symptoms served as a significant mediator on the relationship between perceived discrimination and somatic symptoms. These findings highlight Asian American college students' experiences with discrimination and the process by which they manifest the internal distress and how distress expression varies according to social class.