UCLA

Asian Americans (AAs) face growing mental health risks, including rising rates of anxiety, depression, post-traumatic stress, and suicide (Lee et al., 2022; Karaye, 2022; Hahm et al., 2021; Twenge et al., 2021). Longitudinal data show that while mental health problems improved for White, Black, and Latine groups following the COVID-19 pandemic, it worsened among AAs, likely reflecting persistent discrimination experiences that were exacerbated by scapegoating of AAs during the pandemic (Cheslack-Postava et al., 2024; Dougan et al., 2024; Wu et al., 2021). Despite these growing mental health disparities, AAs remain persistently underserved due to stigma and a lack of culturally appropriate interventions. Thus, AAs face an increasing mental health care gap (Chu & Sue, 2011; Zhou et al., 2021). Self-criticism, a transdiagnostic trait associated with depression, anxiety, psychosis, and personality disorders (Werner et al., 2019a), has been identified as more prevalent among AAs relative to other racial/ethnic groups (Castro & Rice, 2003; Chang & Asakawa, 2003; Pourmand et al., 2024) and may be one factor associated with rising mental health problems among AAs. Research on self-criticism has narrowly attributed elevated self-criticism in AAs to cultural heritage and family processes while minimizing the role of race-related stress, and few studies to date have examined the psychological processes that may sustain self-criticism in AAs over time.The present dissertation employed a convergent parallel mixed methods approach with two aims: (1) Study 1 examined ecological correlates of self-criticism in AAs, integrating family processes, heritage cultural values, and race-related stress; and (2) Study 2 assessed positive and negative reinforcement processes that may maintain self-criticism in this population, specifically testing whether self-criticism is positively reinforced in the short-term through increased task motivation and persistence, and subsequently through increased self-efficacy; as well as whether self-criticism is negatively reinforced subsequently through reductions in negative affect. A sample of 258 Asian American undergraduate students (M¬age = 20.32; 74.4% cisgender female; 46.12% East Asian, 23.26% Multiracial Asian, 18.22% Southeast Asian, 10.85% South Asian, 1.55% Other) completed a baseline survey and 10-day daily diary study. Additionally, a subsample of 20 participants with elevated self-criticism completed a 60-minute semi-structured qualitative interview. Quantitative and qualitative data were collected and analyzed simultaneously, weighted equally, and integrated to identify areas of convergence and divergence. Study 1 used two-step structural equation modeling (SEM) of cross-sectional survey data and reflexive thematic analysis (RFA; Braun & Clarke, 2006) of interview narratives to examine ecological correlates of self-criticism. Study 2 used random-intercept cross-lagged panel models of 10-day daily diary data and RFA of interview narratives to examine task motivation and persistence as short-term positive reinforcers of self-criticism, and subsequent improvements in self-efficacy and reductions in negative affect as more distal positive and negative reinforcers of self-criticism, respectively.Study 1 results revealed that heritage cultural values and family processes were significantly associated with self-criticism (β = .24), with relational induction as the strongest correlate. Although the quantitative SEM indicated that race-related stress was not a significant independent correlate of self-criticism, qualitative findings revealed that experiences of interpersonal racism shaped internalized achievement standards that interact with family processes and cultural values to fuel self-criticism — a complex pathway that the study’s quantitative data did not capture. Additionally, five qualitative themes about ecological correlates of self-criticism were identified: (1) Internalization of racialized achievement expectations, in which experiences of interpersonal racism plant the seed for what AAs "should be" and position achievement as the singular pathway to security and worth; (2) familial transmission of self-criticism through direct parental pressure, modeling and emotional restraint, and the intergenerational legacy of immigration; (3) relational self-scrutiny organized around fulfilling role obligations in key relationships; (4) social comparison within the AA community and imposter syndrome in high-achieving environments; and (5) identity confusion in young adulthood following the disruption of an early, achievement-centered identity.Study 2 results found modest evidence to support that self-criticism is positively reinforced in the short-term through increases in task motivation and persistence; little to no evidence to support that self-criticism is more distally reinforced through increases to self-efficacy, and no evidence to support that self-criticism is more distally negatively reinforced through decreases in negative affect. Furthermore, quantitative and qualitative data sources converged to show that while self-criticism temporarily and modestly boosts motivation and persistence in the short-term, over time, chronic self-criticism drives notably larger and more sustained levels of high negative affect, low self-efficacy, and low motivation and persistence. Qualitative findings converged with these findings and were organized under the overarching theme of self-criticism as a double-edged sword, capturing how its immediate motivational and behavioral benefits are salient enough to sustain it, while its deeper psychological costs accumulate more insidiously over time. Three subthemes illuminated experiences of self-criticism among AA young adults: (1) perceived benefits of self-criticism as a motivational and behavioral driver, catalyst for self-improvement, and source of valued personal qualities, (2) wide-ranging emotional and behavioral costs of sustained self-criticism, including anxiety, chronic stress, erosion of self-worth, neglect of basic needs, loss of intrinsic motivation, and constriction of joy, and (3) near universal ambivalence about relinquishing self-criticism despite its many costs.Taken together, findings suggest that self-criticism in AA young adults may be best understood not as a fixed personality trait or direct product of ‘Asian culture’, but as an adaptive yet psychologically costly striving mechanism enacted in response to interpersonal racism and family socialization processes that themselves may be understood within broader structures of racial inequity. These findings demonstrate need for development of culturally responsive interventions for AAs that acknowledge the adaptive origins of self-criticism, make the temporal disconnect between proximal benefits and chronic costs explicit, and engage directly with ambivalence to change. Radical healing and self-compassion represent two such interventions, offering alternative pathways through which AAs can pursue the motivational goals served by self-criticism without its associated psychological and emotional costs.