Skip to main content
Category

AAJP

AAJP June 2021 Article Spotlight: Joel Wong and Keiko McCullough wrote “The Intersectional Prototypicality Model: Understanding the Discriminatory Experiences of Asian American Women and Men”

By AAJP, Announcements

This June’s Asian American Journal of Psychology’s feature article is written by Joel Wong and Keiko McCullough, who provided information about their research and writing the article below. Check out the journal for the full article.

https://psycnet.apa.org/doiLanding?doi=10.1037%2Faap0000208 and here is the link for the ToC for the June issue: https://psycnet.apa.org/PsycARTICLES/journal/aap/12/2

Writing this article was profoundly meaningful for both of us because of our lived experiences as Asian Americans. Although we cited research and theories in support of the Intersectional Prototypicality Model, this model also reflects our personal experiences as well as those of many other Asian Americans. We included practical examples, such as Jeremy Lin’s experiences of being a hypo-prototypical professional basketball player, the omission of Asian American women from a 2019 Monitor on Psychology article featuring women of color researchers, the representation of Asian women in pornography, and the challenges that Asian American men face as dating partners. We hope our article will draw attention to the dual constructs of hypo-prototypicality (being perceived as less representative of a social group or role) and hyper-prototypicality (being perceived as having exaggerated attributes of a prototypical group member) as well as how they shape the types of discrimination committed against Asian Americans.

———————

Joel Wong is a Professor of Counseling Psychology and Chair of the Department of Counseling and Educational Psychology at Indiana University Bloomington. His research interests include Asian American mental health, the psychology of men and masculinities, and positive psychology (the psychology of gratitude and the psychology of encouragement). Dr. Wong is a fellow of the Asian American Psychological Association and of the American Psychological Association (Division 17, 45, and 51).

Keiko M. McCullough is a Doctoral Candidate in Counseling Psychology at Indiana University Bloomington. Her research primarily investigates the intersections of race, gender, and media using both quantitative and qualitative methods. She has served as the student representative of the American Psychological Association’s division of the Psychology of Women and the Asian American Psychological Association’s division of Asian Americans with Multiple Heritages. 

AAJP Vol. 10 No. 2 featuring “Racist Experiences, Openness to Discussing Racism, and Attitudes toward Ethnic Heritage Activities: Adoptee-Parent Discrepancies” by Langrehr, Morgan, Ross, Oh, & Chong.

By AAJP, Announcements

Asian American Journal of Psychology | June 2019 Issue
Feature Article & Table of Contents

FEATURE ARTICLE:

Racist Experiences, Openness to Discussing Racism, and Attitudes toward Ethnic Heritage Activities: Adoptee-Parent Discrepancies
by Langrehr, Kimberly J.; Morgan, Sydney K.; Ross, Jessica; Oh, Monica; and Chong, Wen Wen.

AAPA would like to congratulate the authors for being chosen as the Feature Article of the June 2019 issue. Below is a brief biography of the lead author, Dr. Kimberly Langrehr, and some reflections on this research experience. We hope that the readers of AAJP will find this Feature and the rest of the issue’s articles to be informative and of benefit to their work. The Feature Article may be downloaded for free here, and the June issue’s Table of Contents is at the end of this post.

Brief Biography of Dr. Kimberly Langrehr

Kimberly Langrehr is an Associate Professor in the Division of Counseling and Educational Psychology at the University of Missouri-Kansas City (UMKC). She earned her Ph.D. in Counseling Psychology from Loyola University of Chicago and her undergraduate and master’s degree from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. Dr. Langrehr’s research focuses on the context of socialization for post-modern families, implications of transnational adoption throughout the lifespan, and consciousness transformation. At UMKC, Dr. Langrehr also serves as the Director of Training for the Doctoral Program in Counseling Psychology and teaches courses in Pluralistic Counseling, Counseling Methods, and Prevention and Consultation in Community Settings.

Reflections from the Lead Author

This project represents several firsts for me, which mostly center on collecting dyadic data and using hierarchical linear modeling as the primary data analysis. In particular, collecting data from both adoptees as well as from their parents was certainly time consuming and at times, quite complicated. In addition, up until this project, I hadn’t been involved in research on teens (minors) since I was in graduate school. Ultimately, I am fortunate for the assistance that I received from the family organizations that took part of this project. The success of this study reflects the importance of maintaining collaborative and working relationships with the communities that are at the center of our research.

AAJP VOLUME 10, ISSUE 2 | TABLE OF CONTENTS
[Articles available on APA PsycNET]

FEATURE ARTICLE: Racist experiences, openness to discussing racism, and attitudes toward ethnic heritage activities: Adoptee–parent discrepancies.
Langrehr, Kimberly J.; Morgan, Sydney K.; Ross, Jessica; Oh, Monica; Chong, Wen Wen.

Internalized racial oppression as a moderator of the relationship between experiences of racial discrimination and mental distress among Asians and Pacific Islanders.
Garcia, Gabriel M.; David, E. J. R.; Mapaye, Joy C.

Feeling good—and feeling bad—Affect social problem solving: A test of the broaden-and-build model in Asian Americans.
Wu, Kaidi; Chang, Edward C.

Acculturation and patriarchal beliefs among Asian American young adults: A preliminary investigation.
Yoon, Eunju; Cabirou, Latifat; Bhang, Cecile; Galvin, Sarah.

Peer victimization and the perpetual foreigner stereotype on Sikh American adolescents’ mental health outcomes: The moderating effects of coping and behavioral enculturation.
Do, Kieu Anh; Wang, Cixin; Atwal, Kavita.

“I’m not White, I have to be pretty and skinny”: A qualitative exploration of body image and eating disorders among Asian American women.
Javier, Sarah J.; Belgrave, Faye Z.

Mental illness stigmas in South Asian Americans: A cross-cultural investigation.
Chaudhry, Tahani; Chen, Stephen H.

School-based mental health for Asian American immigrant youth: Perceptions and recommendations.
Arora, Prerna G.; Algios, Alexa.

Context diversity predicts the extent to which the American identity is implicitly associated with Asian Americans and European Americans.
Devos, Thierry; Sadler, Melody.

#YouToo?
Hall, Christine C. Iijima.


For more information on AAJPhttp://aapaonline.org/publications/asian-american-journal-of-psychology/.
Contact: Chu Y. Kim-Prieto, Ph.D., Incoming Editor, AAJP kim@tcnj.edu

AAJP 2016 Best Paper Award

By AAJP, Announcements, Awards

Asian American Journal of Psychology | 2016 Best Paper Award

AAJP 2016 Best Paper Award Winner:
“You’re Asian; You’re supposed to be smart”: Adolescents’ experiences with the Model Minority Stereotype and longitudinal links with identity
by Taylor Thompson, Lisa Kiang, and Melissa R. Witkow

(from: Asian American Journal of Psychology, Vol. 7 No. 2, pp. 108-119. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/aap0000038)

AAPA would like to congratulate the authors of “‘You’re Asian; You’re supposed to be smart’: Adolescents’ experiences with the Model Minority Stereotype and longitudinal links with identity,” for winning the AAJP 2016 Best Paper Award. The article was published in the June 2016 issue of Asian American Journal of Psychology. The award winners were announced at the 2017 AAPA Convention Awards Banquet by Dr. Bryan Kim, Editor of AAJP. Below is a brief biography of the authors, Drs. Taylor Thompson, Lisa Kiang, and Melissa Witkow, and their reflections on this research experience. AAPA would like to thank and recognize the award winners and all authors who continue to make outstanding contributions to AAJP.

Brief Biography of Dr. Taylor Thompson

Taylor L. Thompson earned a bachelor’s degree from Florida State University in psychology and English—creative writing. She received a master’s in psychology from Wake Forest University and a doctorate in counseling psychology and school psychology from Florida State University. She currently serves as a licensed psychologist for Keystone Behavioral Pediatrics in Jacksonville, Florida. Her research interests and projects have focused on the experiences of youth from diverse backgrounds, including Asian American adolescents, gifted and talented children, and college students with disabilities.

Brief Biography of Dr. Lisa Kiang

Lisa Kiang is a Professor in the Department of Psychology at Wake Forest University. She earned her Ph.D. in Developmental Psychology from the University of Denver and received her B.S. in Psychology from the University of Maryland, College Park. Her primary research interests are in the intersections of self and identity, family and social relationships, and culture, with a focus on adolescents from immigrant and ethnic minority backgrounds. Major themes include relational or contextual influences on identity formation, and culturally protective factors in promoting development and well-being.

 

Brief Biography of Dr. Melissa Witkow (Not Pictured)

Melissa R. Witkow is an Associate Professor of Psychology at Willamette University. She earned her Ph.D. in Developmental Psychology from UCLA and her B.A. in Psychology from Pomona College. In her research, she studies the intersection between peer relationships and academic motivation and achievement during adolescence, and how adolescents from diverse backgrounds negotiate the demands in their lives.

 

Reflections from the Lead Author
This study grew out of a thesis project that began in our lab a decade ago. As I was first learning about the model minority stereotype, one of the things that struck me was the stereotype’s lengthy history. As stated in the paper, stereotypes of Asian Americans as an industrious wonder group grew out of Chinese immigration in the 19th century. The idea that the thoughts of people over 150 years ago could shape how people treat each other now—like some sort of strange cultural heirloom—interested me almost as much as how the stereotype has evolved over time. Asian immigrants and their ancestors have been viewed as everything from threatening invaders to pleasant high-achievers in America based on what was convenient in the sociopolitical context. After learning all of this, my biggest questions became how youth exposed to such a shifting image felt about it and how the image affected their views of themselves and their backgrounds.

To put this idea into action, our initial data collection involved putting some miles on the car traveling to a network of schools in North Carolina, some of which had relatively low densities of Asian American students. Our procedure involved calling down eligible students to a common area in the school (e.g., cafeteria, library). One distinct impression I remember was worrying over the students feeling singled out. Indeed, some appeared nervous or made jokes about being gathered in this way. However, others appeared to feel a sense of pride in being called upon as experts of their own experiences. Our co-author, Lisa, remembers many students feeling pleased that they were being studied and that someone cared about their thoughts and feelings. Either way, the data collection experience really made me take pause and wonder how the salience of this Asian American identity fluctuated for these teenagers minute-to-minute, day-to-day, and in different periods in their lives. Reflecting back now, I wonder what the study results would look like if we started over again today? Given what we know about model minority myths being propped up during times of racial tension, I wonder if the current adolescent generation’s awareness of stereotyping and the salience of their identities has changed materially from our initial group, even just 10 years later? I suppose research on an anthropological artifact like a stereotype will always be a moving target. People constantly change, and so do their opinions and relationships. Luckily for us social science researchers, there will always be ongoing questions to ask!

 


For more information on AAJP: http://aapaonline.org/publications/asian-american-journal-of-psychology/.
Contact: Bryan S. K. Kim, Ph.D., Editor, Asian American Journal of Psychology, bryankim@hawaii.edu

AAJP Vol. 8, No. 3, featuring “Perspectives on Work and Work-related Challenges among Asian Americans with Psychiatric Disabilities” by Milner and Kim

By AAJP, Announcements

Asian American Journal of Psychology | September 2017 Issue
Feature Article & Table of Contents

FEATURE ARTICLE:

Perspectives on Work and Work-related Challenges among Asian Americans with Psychiatric Disabilities
by Uma Chandrika Millner and Min Kim

AAPA would like to congratulate the authors of “Perspectives on Work and Work-related Challenges among Asian Americans with Psychiatric Disabilities,” which has been chosen as the Feature Article of the September 2017 issue. Below is a brief biography of the lead author, Dr. Uma Chandrika Millner, and some reflections on this research experience. We hope that the readers of AAJP will find this Feature and the rest of the issue’s articles to be informative and of benefit to their work. The Feature Article may be downloaded for free here, and the September 2017 issue’s Table of Contents is at the end of this post.

 

Brief Biography of Dr. Uma Chandrika Millner

Dr. Uma Chandrika Millner works as a Research Scientist at Boston University Center for Psychiatric Rehabilitation and recently joined Lesley University as Assistant Professor. Social justice and multiculturalism form the foundations of her work. Her research interests focus on the community engagement of diverse groups of individuals with psychiatric disabilities with a specific focus on work and employment and Asian mental health.

 

Reflections from the Lead Author

While exploring ideas for his postdoctoral project, Dr. Min Kim first proposed a replication of my Meaning of Work (MoW) study with Asian Americans with psychiatric disabilities. In response, I recall insisting “Let’s make this as simple and uncomplicated as possible.” The MoW study had a complex design combining consensual qualitative research procedures (CQR) with a participatory component. Anyone who has trained and supervised peers in conducting CQR procedures will know how I felt. With large gaps in the psychosocial rehabilitation literature on Asian Americans with psychiatric disabilities, it can be rather tempting to conduct a behemoth of a project. As a researcher from a minority background, it is really hard to resist this temptation. So instead, I insisted on an unambitious study design with a quick turnaround time. We finally agreed on a study that would build on the MoW project and compare the work perspectives of Asian American and White Americans with psychiatric disabilities. However, “simple” turned out to be far more complicated. We could not find a reliable and valid instrument to meet our needs. On top of that, we could not shake the compelling desire to represent the lived experiences of Asian Americans with psychiatric disabilities without which the study just did not seem complete. Hence, the final version of our project evolved to being a mixed methods study that included instrument development, group comparison, and qualitative inquiry procedures. I suppose some lessons in life are not easily learned. To quote Master Oogway (Kungfu Panda), “One often meets his destiny on the road he takes to avoid it.” The art of simplicity is definitely a work in progress for me . Nonetheless, we are very pleased to be able to share our work and bring this project to the next level. Dr. Kim is already developing the instrument further and we are working on plans to address the community integration needs of Asian American individuals with psychiatric disabilities.

 

AAJP VOLUME 8, ISSUE 3 | TABLE OF CONTENTS
[Articles available on APA PsycNET]
FEATURE ARTICLE: Perspectives on Work and Work-Related Challenges Among Asian Americans With Psychiatric Disabilities [Free download of article]
Uma Chandrika Millner, and Min Kim

Does Emotion Regulation Moderate the Discrimination-Adjustment Link for Adopted Korean American Adolescents? Yekun Qin, Adam Y. Kim, Jenny C. Su, Alison W. Hu, and Richard M. Lee

Latent Profiles of Acculturation and Their Implications for Health: A Study With Asian Americans in Central Texas.
Yuri Jang, Nan Sook Park, David A. Chiriboga, and Miyong T. Kim

Traumatic Experiences and Associated Symptomatology in Asian American Middle School Students.
Elizabeth Davies-Mercier, Michelle W. Woodbridge, W. Carl Sumi, S. Patrick Thornton, Katrina D. Roundfield, Terrence Lee-St. John, Kristen M.Rouspil, and Jennifer Yu

Help-Seeking and Coping Behaviors Among Asian Americans: The Roles of Asian Values, Emotional Intelligence, and Optimism.
Nina Lei, and John Pellitteri

Searching for Connection—Finding Resolution: A Grounded Theory Analysis of Writings of Korean American Adopted Adults.
Oh Myo Kim, Kevin C.Hynes, and Richard M. Lee

The Response to Rural-to-Urban Migration and Other Life Stressors in Shanghai: Effects on Physical and Psychological Well-Being Among Parents of Young Children
Wen-Jui Han, Judith Siegel, and Liwei Zhang

 


Read about the last issue of AAJPhttps://aapaonline.org/2017/09/19/aajp-vol-8-no-3-…y-milner-and-kim/
For more information on AAJPhttp://aapaonline.org/publications/asian-american-journal-of-psychology/.
Contact: Bryan S. K. Kim, Ph.D., Editor, Asian American Journal of Psychologybryankim@hawaii.edu