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How does academic stress affect Asian-American students and what external factors contribute
to stress specifically within Asians?
School is commonly attributed as one of the leading sources of stress in high school
studentsand for good reason. A huge amount of pressure is placed on students to succeed
academically, and this pressure has only been increasing steadily over the years. The strong
emphasis on academic success and achievement has resulted in a society where students who
choose to not pursue further education or who are not academically outstanding are more often
than not left at a severe disadvantage in the future compared to those who excel, as well as
creating an extremely competitive academic environment among students. With all of this, stress
seems to be an unavoidable roadblock on the average high school students road to their future
in fact, stress is normally a natural bodily response to dangerous or otherwise troubling
situations, and it can be invaluable during those times. Despite this, the amount of stress students
experience regularly at school often goes well and beyond the amount of stress considered
healthy or even reasonable, putting these students at risk of developing a plethora of mental and
physical health issues. Pressure on students to excel is constantly on the rise, and the correlation
between academic pressure and student stress levels has not gone unnoticed.
In the same vein, Asian-American students are often viewed as the pinnacle of
educational achievement, the picture-perfect model minorityinherently smart and perfect.
This idea first came to being in the mid-1960s, when the Immigration Act of 1965 allowed a
large number of Asian immigrants to enter America. However, only certain classes of Asians
were allowed entrancespecifically, the wealthiest and most educated groups within their native
countries (Racial Stereotyping of Asians and Asian Americans and Its Effect on Criminal
Justice: A Reflection on the Wayne Lo Case 2-3). These Asian newcomers were quickly hired as

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skilled workers, changing the overall character of the Asian-American community into what
would eventually develop into the idealized model minority stereotype. The most common
stereotype associated with Asians as a whole is the tendency for them to be exceedingly smart
and excel academically, earning top grades and graduating with flying colors. A number of other
stereotypes exist, including the notion that Asian-Americans can do no wrong, but some of the
most harmful ones regard their intelligence and education. These stereotypes create skewed
impressions of Asian-Americans as a whole, making people create sweeping generalizations of
all Asian-American students as being inherently smart or their intelligence being a genetic factor,
despite the term Asian-American being a very broad umbrella term for a large number of
extremely different groups in culture, language, and circumstances. In addition, they may cause
people to have unrealistic or unfair expectations of these students in comparison to other racial
groups, creating even more stress for them to meet these expectations on top of Asian cultural
expectations of academic success.
Robert and Jeanne Segal and Melinda Smith, as well as Marissa Maldonado, provide an
explanation of what exactly stress is and how it affects ones health. According to Segal and
Smith, stress is a normal physical response to events that make you feel threatened or upset
your balance in some way (Stress Symptoms, Signs, and Causes 2). However, students are
constantly experiencing levels of stress that go beyond the level considered healthy and into the
level that results in adverse effects on health. Segal and Smith suggest that people who are highly
stressed become accustomed to the feeling of stress and remain unaware of its severity, even
when it begins affecting their health, thus causing them to become more stressed and worsening
the issue, creating a vicious repeating cycle of stress. They also argue that how people react to
and deal with stress varies from person to person and that something that is extremely stressful to

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one person may not be quite as stressful to another person. Maldonado focuses more on chronic
stress, or long-term exposure to stress, and its biological background, which has shown that
chronic stress creates more myelin-producing cells and less neurons, creating an imbalance in the
brains connectivity (How Stress Affects Mental Health 5).
Carolyn Gregoire focuses on an APA survey on stress levels conducted in 2013, which
found that teenagers report that during school, their stress level reaches an extremely high 5.8/10
when a healthy level of stress is believed to be around 3.9/10. In addition, 31 percent of
teenagers reported that their stress levels increased in the past year, while only 16 percent said
otherwise (American Teens Are Even More Stressed Than Adults 4). Gregoire believes that
teenagers sleep, exercise, technology, and work habits may be a contributing factor to their
increasing stress levels in addition to school. In particular, lack of sleep increases the likelihood
of teenagers developing major depressive disorder by four times. She also suggests that parents
can be a source of stress for teenagers, but they can also influence their stress levels by modeling
healthy ways to deal with stress.
Sian Beilock, a psychology professor, argues that academic stress is also
counterproductive to students education. With the pressure to succeed higher than ever, students
are often overwhelmed by the amount of stress they face and their academic performance is often
in turn affected. This can be worsened by a number of other factors or phenomena, including
pressure or perceived importance of a certain test, or ones gender and its association with
negative stereotypes or beliefs (How Stress Affects Mental Health 2). Beilock recommends
psychological interventions such as addressing students worries regarding tests or difficult
material and reaffirming a students self-worth in order to combat academic stress.

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Regarding Asian-American students, Yong Zhao and Wei Qiu readily tear down four of
the most commonly-believed myths surrounding them: that they have superior academic
achievement, that they are inherently smart, that they are rarely troublemakers or problem
children, and that they are good at everything. Zhao and Qiu argue that overrepresentation of
specific groups of Asian-Americans with better performance rates than others creates unrealistic
standards and expectations for all groups; for example, Chinese-American students are
overrepresented in many of the nations elite universities, receive higher SAT scores in
mathematics, are overrepresented among finalists of National Merit Scholars and other
recognitions, and are less likely to lag behind their age group (How Good Are the Asians?
Refuting Four Myths About Asian-American Academic Achievement 2). In addition, AsianAmericans are extremely diverse and cannot be generalized to fit one stereotype based on a few
specific groups performance. Therefore, using one general stereotype to describe all AsianAmericans is entirely unrealistic and unfair to these students.
Joyce Beiyu Tan and Shirley Yates touch more upon the high emphasis on academic
success that seems to be prevalent throughout the majority of Asian cultures and how it causes
stress in Asian-American students. The Asian countries of China, Singapore, Korea, and Japan,
which are considered Confucian Heritage Culture (CHC) countries, greatly value education and
have extremely high educational standards. In these countries, students most commonly attribute
school and their education to severe amounts of stress. When Asian families move to America,
their children are often left with the same cultural educational standards and expectations of their
parents or their own home country, and this creates a familial obligation to meet these
expectations. A study conducted on Singaporean students by Tan and Yates showed that teacher
and parental expectations of students academic success was highly correlated with the effort

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students put into school and their level of academic achievement (Academic Expectations as
Sources of Stress in Asian Students 16). In addition, their own feelings of self-worth were also
found to affect whether they struggled with reaching their teachers and parents expectations.
Cindy C. Sangalang and Gilbert C. Gee look more into how the support and strains
derived from family and friends affect Asian-American students stress levels and their mental
health. Studies have shown that Asian-American students often need mental health care or
counseling, but the stigma surrounding mental illness or health in Asian culture often discourages
these students from seeking help for mental health issues. Instead, these students often turn to
their friends and family for support. Social support within Asian-Americans has been negatively
associated with acculturative stress and depression, as well as increasing the effect of stressors on
mental health. Again, Asian cultural values may be responsible for this, as students may be
reluctant to open up to others about personal problems for fear of being a burden on others or of
losing face. In addition, social strain brought on by parental expectations can affect students as
well.
Kelly Yu-Hsin Liao and Meifen Wei focus on a specific group of Asian-American
studentsChinese international students, mainly transferees from China to American colleges.
On top of the stress of school, these students face the challenge of a language barrier, having to
adapt to a new, unfamiliar cultural and academic environment, and trying to meet the cultural
expectations of two countries, particularly Chinas. The Chinese cultural emphasis on academic
achievement, as well as the familial obligation to excel academically, creates a huge amount of
stress for these students. Culture shock and the difficulty of acculturation can also create personal
issues for these students, showing the influence of cultural expectations on students (Academic

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Stress and Positive Affect: Asian Value and Self-Worth Contingency as Moderators Among
Chinese International Students 2).
The effect of academic stress on adolescents has been made all too clear. With student
stress levels continually on the rise along with increasingly difficult academic expectations and
standards, students are now subject to a huge amount of pressure to succeed. The educational
environment is now most commonly associated with stress, and students are negatively impacted
physically, mentally, and emotionally by the amount of stress they face daily. For AsianAmerican students, this issue is further worsened by Asian cultural expectations of high
academic achievement and success as well as the many stereotypes associated with inherent
academic success that skew peoples standards and expectations of them to unrealistic levels.
Academic stress may be an issue that affects all students, regardless of race, but Asian-American
students are further burdened by their cultural standards, especially parental expectations, as well
as people generalizing them as the perfect model minority and assuming that they do not
struggle with school or academic stress at all. The latter is especially difficult to deal with, as
even the most impressive of Asian-American students face large amounts of stress and personal
issues that may affect their health. In theory, raising awareness of this issue and reminding others
that even a seemingly perfect Asian-American student with top grades that participates in several
extracurricular activities and is chairman of a school club faces just as much stress as another
student, if not more. Knowing that all students, regardless of race, are affected by academic
stress, but also that Asian-Americans are unfairly stereotyped and often treated differently
regarding academics, is the first step to change for them.

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Works Cited
Gregoire, Carolyn. American Teens Are Even More Stressed Than Adults. The Huffington
Post. The Huffington Post, 11 Feb. 2014. Web. 16 Nov. 2014.
<http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/02/11/american-teens-are-evenm_n_4768204.html>.
Liao, Kelly Yu-Hsin, and Meifen Wei. Academic Stress and Positive Affect: Asian Value and
Self-Worth Contingency as Moderators Among Chinese International Students. Cultural
Diversity and Ethnic Minority Psychology 20.1 (2014): 107-115. Web. 7 Dec. 2014.
<http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24491130>.
Maldonado, Marissa. How Stress Affects Mental Health. Psych Central. Psych Central, 25
Feb. 2014. Web. 16 Nov. 2014. <http://psychcentral.com/blog/archives/2014/02/25/howstress-affects-mental-health/>.
Rhoda J., Yen. Racial Stereotyping of Asians and Asian Americans and Its Effect on Criminal
Justice: A Reflection on the Wayne Lo Case. Asian American Law Journal 7.1 (2000): 23. Print.
Smith, Melinda, Robert Segal, and Jeanne Segal. "Stress Symptoms, Signs, and Causes."
Helpguide.org. Helpguide.org, n.d. Web. 15 Dec. 2014.
<http://www.helpguide.org/articles/stress/stress-symptoms-causes-and-effects.htm>.
Tan, Joyce Beiyu, and Shirley Yates. Academic Expectations as Sources of Stress in Asian
Students. Social Psychology of Education 14.3 (2011): 389-407. Web. 7 Dec. 2014.
<http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs11218-010-9146-7>.

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