Gendered Racism, Family and External Shame, Depressive Symptoms, and Alcohol Use Severity Among Asian American Men

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 Statement Asian 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.