Contributions of Personality, Acculturation/Enculturation and Perceived Racial Discrimination to Social Anxiety among Chinese Immigrants: A Context-Specific Assessment

Previous studies have documented that Asian immigrants tend to report higher levels of social anxiety than do their White American counterparts. However, little is known about the sources and predictors of social anxiety under the context of cultural change.;Based on the diathesis-stress framework of social anxiety (Rapee & Spence, 2004), which posits that social anxiety is resulted from the interaction of genetic, cultural and environmental factors, this study examined relationships among social anxiety and personality traits (neuroticism and extraversion), cultural adaptation (acculturation, enculturation and perceived English fluency), and an environmental stressor (perceived racial discrimination). Participants were 140 first-generation Chinese/Taiwanese immigrants, aged 18 to 71.;A unique feature of this study is that social anxiety was assessed in two social contexts: mainstream society and ethnic community. That is, participants reported their levels of social anxiety interacting with mainstream White Americans (Mainstream SA) and with other Chinese in the U.S. (Ethnic SA), as measured by the revised Social Interaction Anxiety Scale (Mattick & Clarke, 1998). It was hypothesized that participants would report experiencing significantly more Mainstream SA than Ethnic SA. Neuroticism, extraversion, acculturation, perceived English fluency and perceived racial discrimination were hypothesized to jointly and uniquely predict Mainstream SA. Moreover, neuroticism, extraversion and enculturation were hypothesized to jointly and uniquely predict Ethnic SA.;All hypotheses were supported at p ≤ .017. First, a dependent t-test indicated that scores on Mainstream SA were significantly higher than scores on Ethnic SA. Second, hierarchical multiple regression analyses indicated that personality traits contributed 35% of the variance in the prediction of Mainstream SA. Cultural factors contributed an additional 10% of the variance after controlling for personality traits. Perceived racial discrimination accounted for an additional 4% of the variance. The full model explained a total of 48% of the variance in Mainstream SA with extraversion, neuroticism and perceived discrimination being the unique predictors. With respect to Ethnic SA, personality traits contributed 29% of the variance. Cultural factors added an additional 5% of the variance after controlling for personality traits. Perceived racial discrimination added an additional 8% of the variance. The full model explained 43% of the variance in Ethnic SA with extraversion and perceived discrimination being the unique predictors.;Implications for theory, research and practice with Chinese/Taiwanese immigrants are discussed. In particular, results of this study highlight the importance of assessing social anxiety symptoms in different social contexts, particularly for immigrants.