Online Racism, Negative Media Stereotypes, and Internalizing Mental Health Symptoms Among Asian University Students in Canada

Synthesizing Person and Variable-Centered Approaches

Rihal, Tripat K.
Desmarais, Ariane
Christophe, N. Keita

Department of Psychology, McGill University

Gloria Wong-Padoongpatt served as action editor.

Tripat K. Rihal played a lead role in conceptualization, investigation, project administration, and writing–original draft and an equal role in formal analysis and methodology. Ariane Desmarais played a supporting role in data curation and writing–review and editing and an equal role in formal analysis and methodology. N. Keita Christophe played a lead role in supervision, a supporting role in data curation, formal analysis, methodology, and writing–review and editing, and an equal role in conceptualization.

Tripat K. Rihal, Department of Psychology, McGill University, 2001 McGill College, Room 1569, Montreal, QC H3A 1G1, Canada [email protected]

Received September 26, 2024

revised April 27, 2025

Accepted April 30, 2025

Asian American Journal of Psychology Publish Ahead of Print, June 2, 2025. | DOI: 10.1037/aap0000382

Anti-Asian online racism and negative media portrayals have lingered since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. However, little is known about how these exposures impact the mental health of Asian emerging adults. Latent profile analyses were used to identify patterns of exposure to online racism and racist media stereotypes experienced by 376 Asian university students in Canada (M_age = 20.36, 87.8% female, 36.24% foreign-born), as well as differences in internalizing symptoms. Follow-up regression models identified which forms of racism were specifically associated with greater internalizing symptoms. Four profiles emerged from our latent profile analyses: an Average Relative Exposure Profile (44.15% of our sample), a Low Relative Exposure Profile (28.19% of our sample), a High Indirect Relative Exposure Profile (20.75% of our sample), and a High Relative Exposure Profile (6.92%). Across the four profiles we identified, the High Relative Exposure Profile (those who experienced high levels of online racism and negative media stereotypes) had the highest internalizing symptoms. Multiple regression analyses revealed that, over and above all other forms of racism, only online exposures to systemic racism were associated with greater depressive symptoms, while only racist media stereotype exposure was associated with greater anxiety symptoms.