Racial and Ethnic Minority College Students’ Stigma Associated With Seeking Psychological Help: Examining Psychocultural Correlates Hsiu-Lan Cheng New Mexico State University Kwong-Liem Karl Kwan San Francisco State University Todd Sevig University of Michigan Many college students underuse professional psychological help for mental health difficulties. The stigma associated with seeking such help appears to be one of the reasons for this underuse. Levels of psychological distress and past use of counseling/psychotherapy have been found to be important correlates of stigma associated with seeking psychological help (Obasi & Leong, 2009; Vogel, Wade, & Haake, 2006). For racial and ethnic minorities, the hindering effects of self-stigma and perceived stigmatization by others on treatment seeking may further be compounded by their relationships with their own ethnic groups, with other ethnic groups, and with the dominant society. This study used structural equation modeling (SEM) to test a model that explored the effects of psychological distress and psychocultural variables (i.e., ethnic identity, other-group orientation, perceived discrimination) on perceived stigmatization by others and self-stigma for seeking psychological help, controlling for past use of counseling/psychotherapy. The sample consisted of 260 African American, 166 Asian American, and 183 Latino American students. SEM multigroup analyses indicated measurement invariance, but partial structural invariance, across racial/ethnic groups. Across all 3 groups, higher levels of psychological distress and perceived racial/ethnic discrimination, respectively, predicted higher levels of perceived stigmatization by others for seeking psychological help, which, in turn, predicted greater self-stigma for seeking psychological help. Higher levels of other-group orientation predicted lower levels of self-stigma of seeking psychological help across groups. Higher levels of ethnic identity predicted lower levels of self-stigma of seeking psychological help only for African Americans. Implications for research and practice are discussed. Keywords: stigma and psychological help seeking, racial and ethnic minority, perceived discrimination, ethnic identity, other-group orientation A growing body of research has indicated that although the frequency and severity of mental health problems on college campuses have increased, many students do not seek psycho- logical help (Benton, Robertson, Tseng, Newton, & Benton, 2003; Blanco et al., 2008; Zivin, Eisenberg, Gollust, & Golber- stein, 2009). Recent surveys found that about 50% of college students have a diagnosable mental disorder (Blanco et al., 2008; Zivin et al., 2009), but treatment-seeking rate was low among these individuals, ranging from less than 25% (Blanco et al., 2008) to slightly below 50% (Zivin et al., 2009). Racial and ethnic minority (REM) college students were found to underuse mental health service even more than nonminority students and tended to hold less favorable attitudes toward seeking profes- sional psychological help (Loya, Reddy, & Hinshaw, 2010; Masuda et al., 2009) even while reporting more distress. In a survey of 1,166 help-seeking college students from over 40 universities, European American students were found to attend more counseling sessions than all REM groups; in terms of psychological distress, Asian Americans reported the grea- test distress level, followed by Latino Americans, African Americans, and European Americans on the Outcome Questionnaire-45 at intake (Kearney, Draper, & Barón, 2005). College enrollment of REM students has increased from 15% in 1976 to 33% in 2010 (U.S. Department of Education, 2012). As the number of REM students continues to increase on college campuses, there needs to be a better understanding of the factors and challenges related to seeking psychological help so that the specific needs of these students can be addressed by college mental health professionals. Fear of stigmatization is the most mentioned reason for not seeking professional psychological help (Corrigan, 2004). In this study, we investigated stigma associated with seek- ing psychological help in a sample of African American, Asian American, and Latino American college students. We specifically focused on how psychological distress and psychocultural vari- Hsiu-Lan Cheng, Department of Counseling and Educational Psychol- ogy, New Mexico State University; Kwong-Liem Karl Kwan, Department of Counseling, San Francisco State University; Todd Sevig, Counseling and Psychological Services, University of Michigan. We thank Eve Adams for her helpful comments on an earlier version of this article. Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Hsiu-Lan Cheng, Department of Counseling and Educational Psychology, College of Education, MSC 3CEP P.O. Box 30001, New Mexico State University, Las Cruces, NM 88003. E-mail: hlcheng@nmsu.edu Journal of Counseling Psychology © 2013 American Psychological Association 2013, Vol. 60, No. 1, 98 –111 0022-0167/13/$12.00 DOI: 10.1037/a0031169 98