Exploring the link between self-construal and distress among african american and asian american college students

The authors investigated ethnicity, self-construal, and distress among African American and Asian American college students. African American students expressed more salient independent self-construals, whereas Asian American students expressed more salient interdependent self-construals. As hypothesized, among African American participants, distress was positively related to interdependent self-construal and negatively associated with independent self-construal. Contrary to prediction, the same pattern was found for Asian American participants. Multicultural clinical practice implications are presented.