Hsiu-Lan Cheng

• Ph.D
• Professor (Full) at University of San Francisco

Objectification theory has been applied to understand disordered eating among college women. A recent extension of objectification theory (Moradi, 2010) conceptualizes racism as a socialization experience that shapes women of color’s objectification experiences, yet limited research has examined this theoretical assertion. The present study propose...

This study examined familism, ethnic identity (search and commitment), and gender as moderators in the associations between two minority stressors (i.e., perceived discrimination, acculturative stress) and depressive symptoms in Mexican American college students (N = 207) in a Hispanic-Serving Institution. Hierarchical multiple regression analyses...

Drive for muscularity (McCreary & Sasse, 2000) is a prominent factor in men's body image concerns; however, researchers have typically examined this construct in samples of predominantly White, non-Hispanic men. The present study extended existing sociocultural theories of men’s body image by examining the relative contributions of media internaliz...

Many college students underuse professional psychological help for mental health difficulties. The stigma associated with seeking such help appears to be one of the reasons for this underuse. Levels of psychological distress and past use of counseling/psychotherapy have been found to be important correlates of stigma associated with seeking psychol...

The first purpose of this study was to investigate direct links between body image dissatisfaction (BID) in college women and their memories of either parent as cold and emotionally aloof. Theory, clinical case evidence, and a small (but growing) number of studies support these links. After estimating the strength of the associations between parent...

Individuals of Asian descent are a demographic often overlooked in mainstream body image scholarship. Historically, body image concerns were thought to only affect white, upper-to-middle-class women in North America and Western Europe. However, empirical data accumulated in recent decades have subverted this myth. Contrary to popular belief and ste...

Although perceived language discrimination (PLD) is associated with negative psychological outcomes among international students with Chinese heritage, existing research on PLD is scarce. This study aims to address this gap. Given that many Chinese cultures are characterized as shame-based, we examined whether PLD would be associated with interpers...

Pervasive anti-Asian racism and xenophobia during the COVID-19 pandemic pose risks to Asian Americans’ mental health and wellness. Parents and caregivers play a vital role in children’s identity development and beliefs about race and racism. This article offers an analysis of anti-Asian racism during the COVID-19 pandemic and its impact on Asian Am...

This study uses Lent et al.’s (1994) social cognitive career theory (SCCT) as a framework for understanding the career barriers and coping efficacy experienced by international master’s of counseling psychology students. Grounded in SCCT, we described coping efficacy as international students’ perceived capability to navigate career barriers. Using...

Informed by objectification theory’s tenet that sexual objectification and racism are powerful sociocultural forces that perniciously impact women of color’s mental health (Moradi, 2010), the present study examined the longitudinal links of sexual objectification and three forms of internalized racism (i.e., self-negativity, weakness stereotype, ap...

This study examined longitudinally sequential pathways between parental socioeconomic status and immigrant children’s school performance and depressive symptoms during adolescence, as well as educational attainment and self-rated health upon transitioning into young adulthood among three immigrant groups. Participants included 1522 immigrant youth...

We employed a culturally modified objectification framework to examine a culture-specific mechanism of risky compensatory substance use (alcohol, anabolic-androgenic steroids) associated with gendered racism (GR) among Asian American men (AAM). Using data from 424 AAM, structural equation modeling was conducted to examine our proposed model in whic...

Acculturative stress is a salient contextual stressor for Latinx college students and may adversely impact their familial and psychological processes. Although much empirical literature has examined acculturative stress, family relations, and depressive symptoms among Latinx individuals, considerably less research has used longitudinal cross-lagged...

COVID-19 represents a unique psychosocial challenge for Asian Americans, because they have been scapegoated for the virus. Accordingly, this study examined: (a) the types of racism related to COVID-19, particularly scapegoating (verbal blaming, physical shunning), reported by Asian American college students (N = 120); (b) the consequences of COVID-...

Anti-Asian racism has spiked since the outbreak of the coronavirus 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, creating compounded threats to Asian Americans’ psychological wellbeing on top of other pandemic stressors (e.g., fears of infection, financial insecurity, or quarantine isolation). COVID-19 anti-Asian racism signifies the relevance of race and racism durin...

This study uses Lent, Brown, and Hackett’s (1994) Social Cognitive Career Theory (SCCT) as a framework for understanding the career barriers and coping efficacy experienced by master’s counseling psychology international students. Grounded in SCCT, we described coping efficacy as international students’ perceived capability to navigate career barri...

Infographics (available in Simplified and Traditional Chinese, Korean, Vietnamese, Tagalog, Bengali, Urdu, Hindi) and the accompanying short videos. Asian Americans continue to be blamed for Covid-19. A July 2020 report from the Pew Research Center found that Asian and Black Americans are more likely than other groups to report negative experienc...

In a sample of 881 Asian American college students, the present study examined self-esteem and nativity status (i.e., non-U.S.-born vs. U.S.-born) as moderators in the associations between race-based marginalization experiences (i.e., awareness of the perpetual foreigner stereotype and perceived racial discrimination) and private racial regard. Res...

The psychology of hope is used to conceptualize how college students successfully meet their personal and professional goals and ultimately persist to graduation. However, limited evidence has suggested that high levels of hope might have a paradoxical effect for Black college students when faced with experiences of discrimination. The present stud...

Despite the growth in school-based mental health services (SBMHS), rates of mental health help-seeking among adolescents remain low, especially for ethnic minority youth. This study examined factors associated with adolescents’ help-seeking of mental health services among a sample of 369 racially diverse high school students (age M = 15.5 years, SD...

Although the theory of hope proposed by Charles R. Snyder is the dominant perspective in hope psychology, scholars have questioned whether it adequately represent laypeople’s understanding of hope. Accordingly, this mixed-methods study (N =298) explored U.S. college students’ lay beliefs about hope. Participants provided written responses to eight...

Although the empirical link between experience of racism and academic concerns has been documented, researchers have not used a cross-lagged longitudinal design to disentangle the temporal relations between perceived discrimination and academic outcomes among Latinx college students. It is important to identify whether perceived discrimination pred...

Many college men express stigma of seeking psychological help, possibly due to masculine gender role socialization proscribing help seeking. However, not every man who buys into restrictive masculine roles expresses self-stigma of seeking help, suggesting the presence of potential moderating variables. The present study examined self-compassion and...

To address limitations in conceptualizing and measuring encouragement, the authors developed the Academic Encouragement Scale (AES) to assess the experience of receiving challenge-focused encouragement (directed toward people facing difficult situations) and potential-focused encouragement (helping people realize a potential) within an academic con...

This study identifies factors associated with Latino/Hispanic adults' healthcare experiences in a county along the U.S.-Mexico Border designated by the government as a geographic primary care, mental health, and dental health professional shortage area. An interpretative phenomenological approach was applied to analyze qualitative data collected th...

Sexism and racism often imbue Asian American women’s socialization experiences. Operating from an objectification theory framework, the present article (a) examines the conceptual relevance of racial and sexual objectification in describing Asian American women’s oppressive experiences, (b) reviews empirical studies linking racial and sexual object...

This study examined self-stigma of seeking psychological help and mental health literacy as predictors of college students’ (N = 1,535) help-seeking attitudes, with additional attention to psychological and demographic correlates. Results indicated that mental health literacy predicted help-seeking attitudes above and beyond self-stigma. Asian race...

Using data from Children of Immigrants Longitudinal Study, this study examined the longitudinal effects of cumulative risk of immigrant parents on immigrant youth’s health and educational achievement in young adulthood. The mediating effects of intra- (i.e., family cohesion) and inter-familial (i.e., parental school involvement) social capital were...

In the present study, we used multigroup structural equation modeling in a sample of college students (N = 2,461) to examine ethnic and gender differences in the connections between dispositonal hope and intentions to seek psychological help from formal and informal sources. In a personal-emotional problem scenario, we found a robust positive relat...

Objectives: We explored the moderating role of observed skin color in the association between prejudice and concurrent and lagged psychological functioning (i.e., depression, ingroup/outgroup psychological connectedness). We further aimed to understand gender differences in these processes. Method: Data from 821 Asian American undergraduate student...

Objective: Adult attachment theory provides a unique framework for understanding psychological aggression in college student relationships; however, little is known about how attachment dimensions (anxiety and avoidance) are connected to specific forms of psychological aggression. The present study tested a model connecting attachment dimensions to...

Despite decades of research on the treatment of mental illness, providing services to the public remains a significant concern. According to recent data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, a large number of individuals suffer from psychiatric conditions, yet few receive the necessary treatment. Among ethnic minority populations, th...

Qualitative findings; and an oral presentation

Many college students experience common mental health concerns such as anxiety and depression but do not seek psychological help. The present study proposed an attachment theory-driven model interrelating adult attachment, mental health concerns, and self-stigma in predicting intentions to seek counseling with a college student sample (N = 1,682)....

The present investigation examined dispositional hope as a psychological strength that mediates the associations between adult attachment dimensions and seven commonly assessed college student psychological symptoms as measured by the Counseling Center Assessment of Psychological Symptoms-62: depression, eating concerns, substance use, generalized...

The present study examined a mediation model that hypothesized intergenerational family conflicts would mediate the association between perceived racial discrimination and depressive symptoms among foreign-born and U.S.-born Asian American emerging adults (N = 678) recruited from a large university in the Midwest. The model further hypothesized tha...

The present study examined a mediation model that hypothesized intergenerational family conflicts would mediate the association between perceived racial discrimination and depressive symptoms among foreign-born and U.S.-born Asian American emerging adults (N = 678) recruited from a large university in the Midwest. The model further hypothesized tha...

Racial/ethnic discrimination has been identified as a risk factor in the development of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms in persons of color (Carter, 2007). Many persons, regardless of race/ethnicity, with PTSD symptoms resulting from combat, violent crimes, sexual assault, or natural disasters use alcohol in an attempt to cope. This l...

Quantitative findings

Quantitative study

Quantitative findings

Sociocultural models of eating disorders emphasize the role of internalization of media standards of beauty in eating pathology, but rarely examine (a) how racial and cultural factors may be related to women of color’s tendency to endorse Western media beauty ideals, or (b) these women’s risk of developing body dissatisfaction and disordered eating...

Quantitative findings

Quantitative findings

Archival data (N = 1,048 women, 1,136 men) from a mental health survey of college students were used to investigate incidence of nonsuicidal self-injury (NSSI), including cutting. Significant levels (defined as 4-5 lifetime incidents) were found in 9.3% of women and 5.3% of men. The Counseling Center Assessment for Psychological Symptoms (a global...

This study surveyed 559 Taiwanese undergraduates regarding anger expression toward parents and depressive symptoms. Five modes of anger expression were explored. All modes of expression were either neutral or positively associated with depressive symptoms. This result is contrary to studies of Western culture suggesting that some modes of anger exp...