Interaction of Unrestricted Mobility, Perceived Discrimination, and Self-Critical Perfectionism on Depressive Symptoms of Asian American College Students

As a component of the model minority stereotype, unrestricted mobility (UM) refers to the notion that Asian Americans do not face racism and related barriers, and as result, the academic and career successes experienced by Asian Americans are relatively easier to obtain as compared to other racial/ethnic groups (Yoo et al., 2010). The present study examined the relationship between UM and depressive symptoms with attention to the potential moderating roles of perceived discrimination and self-critical perfectionism. The study builds from the self-discrepancy theory in which the interaction of internalized UM, perceived racial discrimination, and self-critical perfectionism was expected to relate to depressive symptoms. This three-way interaction model was tested with a sample of 203 Asian American college students using SPSS PROCESS Macro (Hayes, 2013). As hypothesized, results indicated that the harmful effect of UM on depressive symptoms depended on the degree of perceptions of perceived discrimination and self-critical perfectionism. Specifically, at high levels of perceived discrimination and strong tendencies of self-critical perfectionism, UM was positively associated with depressive symptoms. This finding highlights the mental health costs of UM with implications for a nuanced approach when targeting issues regarding the model minority stereotype. Critical implications from the findings and future directions are further discussed.