Revisiting and Extending the Role of Religious Coping in the Racism-Mental Health Relation among Christian, Asian American Students

Abstract

Despite the prevalent belief to the contrary, Asian Americans are susceptible to experiencing contemporary forms of racism and their deleterious influence on mental health. The present study is an empirical investigation of Asian Americans' experience of racism, its association with mental health, the different religious coping strategies that might be utilized, and the mediating roles of religious coping in a sample of Christian Asian American college students. The current study revisits and extends a prior study (P. Y. Kim, Kendall, & Webb, 2015) by using a more nuanced conceptualization and assessment of religious coping, examining religious coping as a mediator instead of a moderator, and examining mental health outcomes multidimensionally (anxiety, depression, and well-being). Results indicated that Asian American participants tended to rely on certain types of religious coping over others, and that some highly endorsed religious coping strategies had a deleterious effect on mental health (e.g., positively associated with racism and distress symptoms), whereas other endorsed strategies had a facilitative role on mental health (e.g., positively associated with racism, but inversely associated with psychological distress). The findings point to the complex roles religious coping might play in the association between racism and the mental health of Asian American college students.