Asian American Representation Within Psychology: Who Is Included? Who Is Left Out?

Abstract

As a racial group, Asians are incredibly diverse; however, psychology research may not capture heterogeneity within this social category. Recent findings suggest that U.S. perceivers consider East Asian (e.g., Chinese, Japanese) Americans as more prototypically Asian American than South (e.g., Indian, Pakistani) or Southeast Asian Americans (e.g., Filipino, Vietnamese; Goh & McCue, 2021). We investigated whether artifacts of this cultural default are present in research conducted by U.S.-based psychologists. We also examined non-U.S.-based research to understand the potential limits of this prototype and its influence on research, globally. We expected to observe that most participants in psychology research are of East Asian descent and that most stimuli used to represent Asian identity actually depict East Asian (versus South and Southeast Asian) identity. To test our hypotheses, we conducted a literature search of psychology publications that mentioned “Asian” in the abstract. In line with our hypothesis, researchers were more likely to include East Asian participants and to present East Asian stimuli than to include or present South or Southeast Asian participants and stimuli in their research – results we observed in research conducted both within and outside of the U.S. We draw on intersectionality theory to inform recommendations for how researchers may work toward greater diversity and inclusion in their research.