Asian American Journal of Psychology, Vol 13(4), Dec 2022, 328-338; doi:10.1037/aap0000284
In a national sample of 565 Asian Americans, this study investigates whether direct experiences of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) racism or vicarious exposure (e.g., witnessing, news reports, videos, and stories) of others experiencing COVID-19 racism lead to adverse mental health outcomes above and beyond the impact of general COVID-19 stressors. We used moderated moderation models to test our hypotheses of main effects and three-way interaction effects using the PROCESS Macro in SPSS (Hayes, 2017). Our results showed that both direct and vicarious experience of COVID-related racism significantly and positively predicted depressive, anxiety, and somatic symptoms, above and beyond the impact of general COVID-related stressors. In addition, the three-way interaction of COVID-related racism, internalized racism, and generational status was significant in three out of four models. There was a significant interaction effect such that higher levels of internalized racism mitigated the strength of the relation of COVID-related direct and vicarious racism on depression and anxiety symptoms for 1.5 and 2nd+ generation Asian Americans. For 1st generation Asian Americans, internalized racism exacerbated the impact of vicarious COVID-related racism on somatic symptoms. Our findings revealed the nature of how immigration generational status and internalized racism moderated the relations between COVID-related racism and psychological wellbeing for Asian Americans during a public health crisis. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved)