While in graduate school, I had the extreme good fortune of working with a variety of mentors, looking at a variety of theories, and using a variety of methods. However, there has always been a central focus in my work on the experience of the minority, and how they react to subtle intergroup influences. I have used a wide arsenal of approaches, including experiments, surveys, longitudinal and qualitative data to examine the interplay of minority groups navigating a society of majority groups. In this statement, let me discuss four lines of research that I have been involved in that not only looked at different minority groups, but also exploring different theories at play.

The Citizen and the Minority

For my Masters thesis, I investigated the interplay between the citizen and the minority, specifically if there was a trade-off between identifying between the two. After the events of 9/11, there have been two separate noticeable social trends -- that there was a strong coherence for Americans to come together, and another one to downplay the individual minority status. On the one hand, one’s race did not matter as long as one were American. On the other, there was a strong derogation of minority groups (such as Mexican or Middle Eastern immigrants) when they asked for solidarity. These sub-factions were viewed as fractious. Does a minority member need to shed off their minority identity to feel more American? We tested this using an experiment to see how majority and minority members reacted after being primed of patriotism. Congruent with Social Identity Theory, I predicted that there is a trade-off for minorities, where after experiencing a surge in attachment to their country, there will also be a drop in their attachment in their minority group. We used memories of 9/11 as our patriotic prime. For White Americans, since being American is congruent with being White, there would be no conflict. However, for minorities, being American might conflict with their minority identity, and will have to shift alliances in order to focus on their American identity. We processed more than 1400 internet participants for this experiment. After participants were primed of 9/11 (versus a control condition), we assessed their ethnic and national identity and attachment. We found that there were different interactions amongst different ethnic groups. For example, Hispanics and Asians dis-identified more with their race after the threat prime, but this had no effects on Blacks. This shows there might be more than a simple answer between how majority groups and sub-groups interact.
After my primary adviser on this project, Paul Davies, moved on from UCLA, I continued this line of work under Yuen Huo. We added a new frame – subgroup respect -- to investigate this phenomenon. In an environment where minority groups navigate amongst a majority group, the respect that minority groups receive often predicts that group’s self-esteem, social engagement and success. Respect has now been come to be understood as having two components: status and liking. The status component of respect looks at how individuals are perceived as a valuable member of the groups. The liking component of respect looks more closely at how well-liked individuals are among their group members. Several studies have demonstrated that when individuals feel more respected, they are more likely to be engaged in the group to which they belong, as well as other positive psychological benefits, such as increased self-esteem. This line of work is interested in two moderators that influence the relationship between subgroup respect and positive outcomes -- group salience and status security. Salience can be described as how obvious and important one’s ethnic group is. For example, Hispanics on campus have high salience, but Whites do not. Status security is the understanding that that social status of one ethnic group is relatively stable. For example, Whites and Asians may have high status security on campus, but Hispanics have a relatively weaker one. We are interested in how these variables have strong implications of how receiving respect may have different effects on different ethnic groups based on these two criteria. Specifically, individuals who report a higher security in their status will also experience a stronger relationship between respect and positive outcomes. For our first study, we will survey around 800 students at UCLA, looking at how the respect they perceive their ethnic group is receiving can influence their behavior, feeling of belongingness and psychological wellbeing. The outcome of these studies will speak to how a subgroups and minorities deal with their minority status, and how they achieve success in such an environment.

Gay and Lesbian Body Image

Working under Anne Peplau, I also conducted several massive online surveys on the relationship between body image and sexual orientation. Body satisfaction is one measure of psychological well-being, and also another way at looking at the discrete social pressures put on a sexual minority. This study found that heterosexual men enjoyed the healthiest body image. Not surprisingly, heterosexual women and gay men both experience lower levels of body satisfaction. The most surprising find is that even lesbians suffer the same level of body satisfaction. This is surprising because lesbians are stereotyped to be non-traditional, and are free from sexual objectification from men. This might be explained by the strong, heteronormative definitions of was society finds attractive. These pervasive ideals can affect the lives of this sexual minority insidiously.

Asian-American men on Interracial Dating

            While interracial romance has been portrayed as the final barrier to be struck down between racial groups, the pace and direction it has taken, is certainly lop-sided. Currently, interracial romance is asymmetrical and imbalanced, with Asian-American women the most likely minority demographic to outdate and out-marry. According to the 2000 census, while interracial marriage is less than 5% of all marriages, Asian/ White combinations are 80% of all these marriages. In addition, the White Male/ Asian Female pairing is 3 times more likely than the reverse. Asian-American men, for a lack of better term, are being ‘left behind.’ This begs the question, how do Asian men perceive the rate at which Asian-American women outdate and out marry? What kind of psychological reaction does this have on them? These are the two central questions my dissertation hopes to answer.
            Specifically, several theories speak to the possibility of Asian-American men feeling embittered and threatened by this trend. Realistic Group Conflict Theory suggests that intergroup competition and perceived scarcity of potential dating partners can lead Asian-American men to experience intergroup animosity. Social Identity Theory posits that, since ingroups work to favorably differentiated themselves from outgroups, interracial romance may weaken the boundaries and cohesiveness of the ingroup. Moreover, outdating can be seen as a critique of the goodness of the ingroup and their culture. Finally, negative stereotypes against Asian-American men may also play a role. Negative stereotypes portray Asian-American men as unacculturated, unromantic, and emasculated.  Faced with these unflattering stereotypes, Asian-American men may experience stereotype threat in romantic situations, and may develop inferior views of their own masculinity, with the end result being a weakened self-esteem. Based on these theories, I propose that Asian-American men may feel both a cultural threat and a masculinity threat when primed of Asian-American women outdating.
To understand this better, my dissertation is composed of three different sections. First, I collected qualitative data from online focus groups, to naturally get at how Asian-American men perceive and respond to this situation. This is followed by a survey portion, where I collected an internet survey of 150 Asian-Americans online, looking at the interplay of various psychological measures (e.g. Social Dominance Orientation, Modern Racism, Social identity strength etc.), their dating history and their attitudes on interracial dating and couples. Finally, in the experimental portion, running currently, I am testing the masculinity threat component. After being primed of interracial couples (or the control condition), I test to see if these men will compensate for their masculinity by completing more push-ups. However, since traditional Asian masculinity focuses on education, income and providing for one’s family, versus Western masculinity which focuses on brawn and strength, I predict that Asian men might compensate their masculinity by overestimating their future worth. Another group will complete a task where they predict their future income and education.
The conflict for Asian-American men, who have seen their female peers outdate at the highest levels, is a paradoxical one. On the one hand, to oppose interracial romance seems unprogressive and somewhat racist. On the other hand, existing racial inequalities feed into the interracial romance machinery, causing racist outcomes. Asian-American men face the unique challenge of navigating this venue of inequality, while needing to remain the calm and collected model minority. To explore this issue is to understand this conflicting, quiet and racially difficult source of frustration.
            In addition to my dissertation work on this topic, I have also collaborated with my colleagues and research assistants to further investigate other related branches. For example, I have examined longitudinal data from a panel study done at UCLA on the 90’s looking at predictors of interracial dating. With Vani Murugesan and Aston Tsui, I ran an experiment on the perceived compatibility of interracial couple by asking participants to play matchmaker. We found that participants overwhelmingly avoided pairing Asian men with White women, even if they make the best pairing. They had no problems with making same race, or White male/Asian female pairings. I have also worked with another undergraduate, Vicky Garafola, in looking at whether Asian-American men dislike White men who date Asian women in a roommate selection task, and also a study with another undergraduate, Colin King, to see what attitudes and stereotypes Asians men and women have on Asian women who choose to outdate. For example, if they are seen as more sexually promiscuous and less culturally traditional. All these studies help us better understand the phenomenon of interracial romance, and the social barriers that prevent from occurring more often.

Affirmative Action, Women and Minorities

This line of research was born from a very real world phenomenon Prof. Miguel Unzueta observed in business school environments, where the gender ratio was heavily skewed towards men. He noticed that students were more open to accepting women into their social circles, compared to any other under-represented groups. We were interested in the individual forces that would make men more open to affirmative action policies, specifically their own attitudes on sex, sexism and sexual frustration. We predicted that this variable would make men more open to policies that promote gender diversity in the workplace, but not to ethnic diversity, because that would actually increase the male competition. However, men would be more open to accepting minority women into the workplace also. This line of research had both a survey and experimental portion. First, we developed a measure of participant’s agreement with various affirmative action policies that involved giving preferential hiring to increase women in their workplace, or more African-Americans in the workplace. We also measured their own sexual efficacy, sexist attitudes and frustration. Based on the strong correlations we saw, we developed an experimental design where participants were primed to feel sexually frustrated or not, then asked them to rate several affirmative action policies. Results more or less confirmed our hypothesis, that sexual frustration and feelings of loneliness can lead to openness to accept women, but antagonizes feelings towards minority men. We are currently in phase three of our study to clarify some of the unexpected interaction of sexist attitudes. The results of this study will speak to organizational behavior psychology, looking at acceptance of diversity in the workplace, and the role of sexual frustration and sexism in moderating this openness.

Conclusion

            In summary, I have been involved in several programs of research testing important questions about majority/ minority relations. I have gained experience and expertise in a variety of research methods and statistical analysis. My research has always had a focus of how minority groups fare in situations where there are subtle discriminatory pressures from the majority, and I hope to continue this line of research in new situations, settings and cultures. CUHK will provide me with new possibilities to continue my line of work.