Mental Health Stigma, Self-Concealment, and Help-Seeking Attitudes among Asian American and European American College St
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Mental Health Stigma, Self-Concealment, and Help-Seeking Attitudes among Asian American and European American College Students with No Help-Seeking Experience Akihiko Masuda & Matthew S. Boone
Published online: 21 September 2011 # Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2011
Abstract The present study examined whether mental health stigma (i.e., negative attitudes toward people with a psychological disorder) and self-concealment are unique predictors of help-seeking attitudes in Asian American and European American college students with no history of seeking professional psychological services. The Asian American group had less favorable help-seeking attitudes overall, lower levels of stigma tolerance and interpersonal openness, greater mental health stigma, and greater self-concealment than the European American group. Mental health stigma and self-concealment were unique predictors of helpseeking attitudes overall in both groups. However, mental health stigma was not a unique predictor of recognition of need for psychotherapeutic help and confidence in mental health practitioners, the components of help-seeking attitudes theorized to be most associated with actual help-seeking behavior. Self-concealment was a unique predictor of confidence in mental health practitioners in the Asian American group, but not in the European American group. Keywords Asian Americans . European Americans . Attitudes toward seeking professional psychological help . Self-concealment . Mental health stigma
Introduction The psychological health and service utilization of Asian American college students in the U.S. warrants further study. Despite their “model minority” status (cf., Mok 1998), Asian Americans are found to be at least as distressed as European Americans and those from other ethnic backgrounds (cf., Hall 1995; Sue and Chu 2003). Some studies suggest that Asian American college students may be more vulnerable to psychological distress (cf., Lau et al. 2009; Liao et al. 2005; Okazaki 1997, 2000; Okazaki et al. 2002) and less likely to
A. Masuda (*) Georgia State University, Atlanta, GA, USA e-mail: [email protected] M. S. Boone Gannett Health Services, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, USA
Int J Adv Counselling (2011) 33:266–279
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utilize psychological services (cf., Kearney et al. 2005; Masuda et al. 2009a) than European Americans. A construct that is especially relevant to this area of research is attitudes toward seeking professional psychological help. According to Fischer and Turner (1970), such attitudes are multidimensional and include four components: (1) recognition of a need for psychotherapeutic help, (2) stigma tolerance associated with professional help, (3) interpersonal openness regarding one’s problems, and (4) confidence in the ability of mental health practitioners to be of assistance. Fischer and Turner posit that recognition of need and confidence in mental health practitioners are most closely associated with actual helpseeking behavior. Studies have consistently demonstrated that being female and having p
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