Testing and Extending the Minority Stress Model Among Jewish College Students: A Mixed Methods Study

Antisemitic incidents have increased on US college campuses, yet psychological frameworks for understanding Jewish experiences are limited. In this study, we used mixed methods to apply the minority stress model (MSM) to Jewish students at a large Midwestern university. Thirty-nine participants completed self-report surveys, and 10 of these participants also completed semi-structured interviews, which were analyzed using reflexive thematic analysis. Quantitative analyses revealed medium and large correlations among antisemitism, vigilance, and Jewish identity, and among collective self-esteem, self-hatred, and mental health outcomes. Qualitative results highlighted the stressful impact of vicarious antisemitism and microaggressions on expectations of rejection, concealment, and identity conflict. Participants also emphasized the protective roles of self-acceptance, community connectedness, and identity pride. Integration supported the applicability of the MSM for understanding Jewish students’ experiences and suggested extensions to capture context-specific processes. Future studies with larger and more diverse samples are needed to further test and refine this framework.