Date of Award

Summer 8-2026

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Department

Psychology

Program/Concentration

Virginia Consortium Program in Clinical Psychology

Committee Director

Catherine Glenn

Committee Member

Andrew Franklin

Committee Member

Christina Rodriguez

Abstract

Among Asian American young adults aged 18-24 years, suicide has been the leading cause of death, accounting for approximately 42.4% of deaths in this population in 2024. Additionally, Asian American college students currently report experiencing elevated suicidal ideation as well. Experiences of racial discrimination have been linked to greater suicidal ideation and behaviors across ethnnoracially minoritized populations, including Asian and Asian American college students. However, limited research has examined culturally relevant mechanisms linking discrimination to suicidal ideation in this population. Using a culturally informed lens, the present study examined the association between racial discrimination and suicidal ideation among Asian and Asian American college students in the U.S. Specifically, the study examined whether momentary stress mediated the within-person association between racial discrimination and suicidal ideation; whether public regard moderated the discrimination to stress association; and whether social coping and activism coping moderated the stress to suicidal ideation association. A total of 132 Asian and Asian American college students completed smartphone-based ecological momentary assessment (EMA) surveys four times daily over 14 days. Multilevel mediation and moderation analyses were conducted in R. Results indicated that momentary stress significantly mediated the concurrent within-person association between racial discrimination and suicidal ideation; however, this indirect effect was not significant in the lagged model. Public regard moderated the discrimination to stress association in a temporally complex pattern. Specifically, higher public regard was associated with a weaker discrimination-to-stress association in the concurrent model but was later associated with a stronger discrimination-to-stress association in the lagged model. Additionally, social coping strengthened the concurrent association between stress and suicidal ideation. On the other hand, activism coping significantly weakened this association concurrently. No significant associations were observed in the lagged model for either coping strategy. These findings underscore the importance of examining racial discrimination and suicidal thoughts as they unfold in daily life and highlight the role of coping and identity-related factors that shape this link. These results extend the existing literature by identifying short-term, within-person pathways linking racial discrimination to suicidal ideation in Asian and Asian American college students in the U.S. - a population that is both understudied and underserved.

Comments

A Dissertation Submitted to the Graduate Faculties Norfolk State University and Old Dominion University in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Psychology in Clinical Psychology through the Virginia Consortium Program in Clinical Psychology.

Rights

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DOI

10.25777/x8r1-3h50

ORCID

0000-0002-3863-4661

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