Does Color-blind Racial Ideology Moderate the Internalization of the Model Minority Myth on Psychological Distress among Asian American College Students?

Using a sample of 309 Asian American college students, the present study examined the effects of color-blind racial ideology (i.e., unawareness of blatant racial issues, unawareness of racial privilege and unawareness of institutional racism) on the link between internalization of the model minority myth (i.e., unrestricted mobility and achievement orientation) and psychological distress (i.e., social climate stress, interracial stress, within group stress, racism stress and achievement stress). Results primarily suggest the denial of blatant racism and racial issues (and not denial of racial privilege and institutional racism) exacerbate the effect of internalizing the model minority myth related to unrestricted mobility, while it buffers the effect of internalizing the model minority myth related to achievement orientation on race-related social stress. Also, denial of racial privilege appears to buffer the effect of internalizing the model minority myth related to unrestricted mobility and within group stress. Clinical implications and future directions for research are discussed.