Experiences of Racism and Race-Based Traumatic Stress Symptoms Among People of Chinese heritage in Canada: The Moderating Role of Resilience
Date
2024-07-09
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Abstract
People of Chinese heritage in Canada face historical and ongoing racism, which has been exacerbated since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. Theories suggest that experiences of racism may lead to race-based traumatic stress symptoms; however, this association has not been examined among Chinese people in Canada. Furthermore, most research has focused on the adverse effect of racism on poor mental health symptoms, little is known about protective factors in the link between racism and race-based traumatic stress symptoms. To this end, I aim to explore the protective role of resilience from both aspects of individual resilience (i.e., an individual’s characteristics that enable them to bounce back from adversities) and collective resilience (i.e., the availability of practical and emotional support from the community). The purpose of this thesis is to explore how resilience protects against the adverse effect of racism on race-based traumatic stress symptoms among people of Chinese heritage in Canada. A sample of 367 adults who self-identified as of Chinese heritage in Canada (e.g., 46.59% women; Mage = 33.9) completed self-report questionnaires. I adopted SPSS PROCESS Model 1 to examine the moderating effect of individual/collective resilience on the relationship between experienced racism and race-based traumatic stress symptoms. The results showed that more experiences of racism were significantly related to increased race-based traumatic stress symptoms. Collective resilience buffered the adverse effects of racism on race-based traumatic stress symptoms, while individual resilience did not moderate this association. These findings suggest that collective resilience, rather than individual resilience, mitigates the negative impacts of racism on race-based traumatic stress symptoms. This study highlights the necessity of recognizing the experiences of racism and its adverse impacts on the mental health of Chinese people in Canada. Furthermore, it underscores the importance of fostering collective resilience and community-based support systems among people of Chinese heritage in Canada.
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Keywords
racism, Chinese, race-based traumatic stress symptoms
Citation
Guo, Z. (2024). Experiences of racism and race-based traumatic stress symptoms among people of Chinese heritage in Canada: the moderating role of resilience (Master's thesis, University of Calgary, Calgary, Canada). Retrieved from https://prism.ucalgary.ca.