Bicultural stress and perceived benefits among Asian Americans: The roles of cognitive flexibility and making positive sense of adversity.

Based on theories of stress-related growth, this study examined whether making positive sense of adversity mediated the associations between bicultural stress and perceived benefits (i.e., mediation hypotheses), and whether cognitive flexibility moderated the association between bicultural stress and making positive sense of adversity (i.e., moderation hypothesis) and the above mediation effects (i.e., moderated mediation hypotheses). Participants were 207 Asian American college students from an East Coast public university. Results from PROCESS supported all hypotheses. First, making positive sense of adversity mediated the relationships between bicultural stress and the perceived benefits of enhanced self-efficacy and increased compassion. Second, cognitive flexibility significantly moderated the association between bicultural stress and making positive sense of adversity. Specifically, this association was not significant for those with higher cognitive flexibility, but making positive sense of adversity was consistently high across all levels of bicultural stress for those with higher cognitive flexibility. However, the association between bicultural stress and making positive sense of adversity was significantly positive for those with lower cognitive flexibility. Third, the significant index of moderated mediation further supported that cognitive flexibility significantly moderated the mediation effects of bicultural stress on perceived benefits through making positive sense of adversity. Counseling implications and future research directions are discussed.