Biography

Gloria Wong-Padoongpatt is a social psychologist whose research focuses on mental health issues among marginalized individuals. Her primary line of research examines the stressful impact of everyday racism, also known as microaggressions. Wong-Padoongpatt investigates the impact, mechanisms, and individual variations in stress responses to these everyday slights and denigrations. Her research program on microaggressions addresses three major gaps: experimentally tests if marginalized individuals experience stress from microaggressions; examines threats to self-concepts as possible mediators of microaggression-generated stress; and investigates individual differences in personality traits as moderators of the microaggression effect.  

Her research also examines ethnic and gender differences in risk factors for addictions, mainly gambling and video game addictions. Her research aims to assess the patterns of gambling behavior and the co-morbidity of gambling problems with other psychological problems; determine whether the psychosocial risk factors associated with gambling are specifically related to gambling or are generically related to any mental health disorder; and examine novel and understudied risk factors for gambling.    

Wong-Padoongpatt's research has been published in the Journal of Counseling Psychology, Race and Social Problems, and the Journal of Gambling Studies, among others. In addition to her research, Wong-Padoongpatt serves as the secretary/historian for the Asian American Psychological Association.