Zhang, H., Stapleton, C. M., Thang, J., & Waggoner, B. (2025). Navigating racial discrimination and negotiating place: A phenomenological analysis of Chinese Americans’ conversations with friends. Journal of Community & Applied Social Psychology, 35(2), e70053.

This study adopted a phenomenological perspective to explore the experiences of racial discrimination among second‐generation and higher Chinese Americans during the COVID‐19 pandemic. It focused on how these experiences are grounded in place and co‐constructed through conversation with friends. Twelve participants were asked to describe a recent conversation with a friend about racial discrimination. Four themes from their narratives are discussed: Moving Along Perilous City Paths, The Paradox of Visibility and Invisibility, Finding Place Amid Alienation and Shame and Transforming Spaces, Creating Home. Together, these themes form a holistic narrative of how Chinese Americans navigate between homeworld and alienworld. The study concludes with a discussion of its contributions and implications.

Stapleton, C. M., Zhang, H., & Jeffrey, B. (2021). The event-specific benefits of writing about a difficult life experience. Europe's Journal of Psychology, 17, 53–69.

This study aims to understand whether the benefits of writing are specific to the event written about or whether the benefits are general. Participants were 120 undergraduate students who had experienced at least two difficult life events. Participants were randomly assigned to experimental and control groups. Experimental participants wrote about one of these difficult events, and control participants wrote about an interesting life event of their choosing. Experimental participants reported their positive and negative emotions as well as their cognitive avoidance and intrusion concerning the event written about and another event not written about. Control participants reported their emotions and cognitions concerning two difficult life events. All participants also reported their general distress. These assessments were done immediately after writing and one week later. The results indicated that experimental participants were emotionally stronger, less upset, and less cognitively avoidant about the particular difficult life event they wrote about compared to an event they did not write about. Similar comparisons between ratings of a written-about and a not-written-about event were not significant for passion, fear, and cognitive intrusion. Discussion of these results focuses on how writing may specifically help change a writer’s feelings and thoughts about a particular situation.

Zhang, H., Stapleton, C. M., Hsueh, Y., & Sun, F. (2021). “Get encouraged through failures. Failures are not fearful. We can always start over again”: Chinese children’s lived experiences of zi zun. Qualitative Research in Psychology, 18(2), 131–157.

Zi zun is an indigenous Chinese experience usually glossed in English as self-respect and self-esteem. Previous research connects zi zun with both the need to defend against those who would wrongfully slander the self for failures and the need to learn from past failures. Interpretative phenomenological analysis was used to co-construct narratives with Chinese children about their experiences of zi zun. Sixteen Chinese school-age children participated in semi-structured interviews. Five themes were identified: (1) dignity and respect, (2) humiliation as a cause of zi zun being hurt, (3) self-defense, (4) self-improvement as reactions to hurt zi zun, and (5) the sociability of those with strong zi zun. Results were interpreted within the perspective of Chinese cultural values, focusing on the ways zi zun is intertwined with both goals of interdependence and autonomy. This study provides implications for educating and caring for young native and immigrant Chinese children.