Perceived Discrimination, Model Minority Stereotyping, and Anxiety Symptoms in Chinese-Heritage College Students

Public Significance Statement Racial discrimination has deleterious effects on mental health, although the mental health implication of model minority stereotyping-an experience unique to Chinese-heritage individuals-is ambiguous. Our results show that discrimination-but not model minority stereotyping-is uniquely and significantly linked to anxiety symptoms in Chinese-heritage college students. Furthermore, this association was stronger among individuals with greater biological parasympathetic reactivity to witnessing discrimination. Objective: Perceived racial discrimination has been associated with elevated anxiety symptoms. Less is known about the mental health implications of another race-related stressor, model minority stereotyping, which is a salient experience for Chinese-heritage youth. In addition, despite theoretical considerations and indirect empirical evidence suggesting that greater autonomic nervous system (ANS) reactivity may index sensitivity to race-related stressors, ANS reactivity has not been examined as a moderator of links between race-related stressors and mental health. The present study investigated cross-sectional associations between self-reports of two salient race-related stressors (perceived discrimination and model minority stereotyping) and anxiety symptoms in Chinese-heritage youth, as well as whether ANS reactivity moderates these relationships. Method: Chinese-heritage U.S. college students (N = 198, 55.6% female, 18-25 years, M-age = 20.0 years) self-reported experiences with race-related stressors. ANS reactivity (respiratory sinus arrhythmia [RSA] and pre-ejection period [PEP]) to a video depicting discrimination was collected on a subsample of participants (N = 103). Results: Although both race-related stressors were positively correlated with anxiety symptoms, only perceived discrimination was uniquely associated with anxiety symptoms. Further, RSA (but not PEP) reactivity moderated the relationship between perceived discrimination and anxiety symptoms, such that associations were stronger for participants with greater RSA withdrawal. Conclusions: Our results replicate findings on the discrimination-anxiety link in Chinese-heritage college students, and show that model minority stereotyping is correlated with greater anxiety symptoms. Findings suggest that individuals with heightened RSA reactivity may be especially vulnerable to the adverse effect of discrimination. These findings have implications for mental health services for Chinese-heritage U.S. college students.