TPC Journal Volume 11 Issue 2

256 The Professional Counselor | Volume 11, Issue 2 Hierarchical Regression Analyses Results from the hierarchical regression analyses are provided in Table 2. The control variables of gender, age, education status, sexual identity, and help-seeking experience were examined in Model 1. Among the control variables, education status, sexual identity, and help-seeking experiences were significantly associated with stress-related growth for Asians and AAPIs. Specifically, participants who had earned a master’s degree or higher and identified as heterosexual had significantly lower scores of stress-related growth compared to those who did not identify as heterosexual. Moreover, participants who sought mental health services following the COVID-19 outbreak reported significantly higher scores of overall stress-related growth compared to those who did not use professional mental health services. Model 1 accounted for 11.6% of the variance in stress-related growth. The direct effects of subtle and blatant racism on stress-related growth were examined in Model 2. Subtle and blatant racism had a significantly positive relationship with stress-related growth among Asians and AAPIs ( β = .456, p < .001) after controlling for gender, age, education, sexual identity, and help-seeking experience. Thus, higher levels of subtle and blatant racism were correlated with higher levels of stress-related growth. Among the control variables, only education status was found to be significantly associated with stress-related growth. Model 2 explained 28.8% of the variance in stress-related growth. The addition of subtle and blatant racism accounted for a 17.2% increase in the explained variance in stress-related growth, which was deemed a medium effect size (Cohen, 1998). Ethnic identity was added in Model 3. Results indicated that ethnic identity was significantly positively associated with stress-related growth for Asians and AAPIs ( β = .244, p < .001) after controlling for gender, age, education, sexual identity, and help-seeking experience. Based on these results, participants in the study who endorsed stronger levels of ethnic identity were more likely to cultivate higher levels of stress- related growth. Model 3 accounted for 33.5% of the variance in stress-related growth. The addition of ethnic identity explained 4.7% of increase in the variance of stress-related growth. Resilience and coping strategy were added and analyzed in Model 4. Both resilience and coping strategy had significantly positive associations with stress-related growth for Asians and AAPIs after controlling for gender, age, education, sexual identity, and help-seeking experience. Specifically, Asians and AAPIs who had higher levels of resilience and higher levels of coping strategy were more likely to develop higher levels of stress-related growth. Model 4 explained 66.2% of the variance in stress-related growth. The addition of resilience and coping strategy accounted for a 32.7% increase in the explained variance in stress-related growth, which represented a large effect size (Cohen, 1998). Moderating Effect of Resilience and Coping Strategy To examine the moderating effect of resilience and coping strategy, Hayes’ (2018) PROCESS macro (Model 1) was employed using 10,000 bootstrapping resamples. As shown in Table 3, coping strategy was significantly positively related to the slope of subtle and blatant racism on stress-related growth ( β = .017, p < .001). Based on these results, coping strategy significantly moderated (i.e., strengthened) the positive link between racism and stress-related growth. As the moderator, coping strategy explained 1.4% of the total variance (51.2%) in stress-related growth, yielding a small effect size (Cohen, 1998). The nature of the moderating effect is presented in the simple slope analyses (Figure 1). Subtle and blatant racism had a significant effect on the development of stress-related growth for Asians and AAPIs with higher levels of coping strategy (+1 SD; b = .468, 95% CI [.169, .767]), but the significant effect did not hold for those with lower levels of coping strategy (−1 SD; b = .017, 95% CI [−.224, .257]). A +2 SD increase in resilience yielded less than .001 change in the conditional effect on stress-related growth, which was small in magnitude (Bodner, 2017). Thus, resilience did not significantly moderate the link between racism and stress-related growth.