Symposia
Culture / Ethnicity / Race
William Tsai, Ph.D.
New York University
New York, New York
Cheng-Yun Teng, MA
Doctoral Student
Palo Alto University
Palo Alto, California
Sophia Hon, MSW
Doctoral Student
University of Miami
Coral Gables, Florida
Angela Wang, MA
Doctoral Student
UMass Boston
Boston, Massachusetts
Objectives: The COVID-19 pandemic has led to heightened discrimination and xenophobia against Asian Americans in the United States. Mainstream media have reported that individuals of East Asian descent have become more fearful of becoming victims of COVID-19-related discrimination. However, studies on COVID-19 discrimination fear have received relatively less attention, especially among youths and young adults. The current study examined the extent to which East Asian first-year college students have experienced COVID-19 discrimination fears, and the impact of COVID-19 discrimination fear on psychological distress (viz., anxiety and depressive symptoms). We also examined whether emotion regulation strategies moderated the relations between COVID-19 discrimination fear and psychological distress.
Methods: First-year college students of East Asian descent in the United States completed a cross-sectional online survey (n = 139; Mage= 17.90; SD= 0.62; 64% female). Results: Participants reported high levels of COVID-19 discrimination fears; 40.3% and 29.5% of the participants endorsed “Quite a bit” or “Extremely” on worries about being harassed or not feeling physically safe due to COVID-19, respectively. Female students endorsed higher levels of COVID-19 discrimination fears than male students. We found that cognitive reappraisal moderated the relations between COVID-19 discrimination fear and depressive symptoms, such that higher levels of cognitive reappraisal buffered the detrimental effects of COVID-19 discrimination fear on depressive symptoms. Similarly, emotion suppression moderated the relations between COVID-19 discrimination fear and depressive and anxiety symptoms, such that higher levels of emotion suppression were associated with lower levels of depressive and anxiety symptoms.
Conclusions: These results highlight the need for university administrators and faculty to address the high levels of COVID-19 discrimination fears experienced by first-year college students of East Asian descent.