Becoming American: The intersections of cultural, ethnic, and gender ideals in predicting levels of perceived stress and mental and physical health among Asian immigrants.

Abstract

Many marginalized groups, including immigrants, idealize their cultural/ethnic heritage. This project explored potential costs and benefits of idealized notions of identity by examining how cultural, ethnic and gender ideals relate to ethnic pride and pressure, perceived stress levels, and physical and mental health among first generation Asian immigrant men and women. The proposed theoretical model predicted that endorsement of cultural and gender ideals would lead to increased levels of stress, which would in turn contribute to poorer physical and mental health, but that these pathways would depend on participant gender. To test this model, new measures of the Model Minority Stereotype (MMS), Asian American Woman/Man Ideals (AAWI and AAMI), and Personal Impact of Ideals (Pressure and Pride) were developed; in addition, the John Henryism Active Coping Scale (JH) was tested for reliability and usefulness among Asian immigrants. The study used data from a community sample of 330 Chinese and Indian immigrants (170 men, 160 women) aged 18 and over (<italic>M</italic> = 34.6 years) living in the U.S. an average of 10.2 years. Results showed that, contrary to predictions, JH was directly related to less stress and better health among men, while JH did not relate to stress or health for women. Results for the MMS showed the opposite pattern: MM constructs (including MMS endorsement, pressure and AAWI) had negative effects on women's stress and health, while only pressure (and not MMS endorsement or AAMI) was related to increased stress or poor health for men. In addition, the relationship among female participants between MMS and pressure was fully mediated by endorsement of AAWI. For men, while pressure directly related to poor health outcomes, MMS endorsement, like JH, had only positive effects, leading to increased feelings of pride, higher collective self esteem, and lower levels of perceived stress. These findings underscore the need to understand the important gender-specific influences of marginalized social experiences on Asian immigrants' health. Overall, this study suggests that health psychology needs to integrate cultural and gender psychological approaches to understand the constituent role of culture, marginality, and self-ideals in shaping the health of immigrant men and women.