Professional immigrants and high-functioning anxiety: assessing some interventions

ABSTRACT Professional immigrants from South Asian countries make a rapidly growing percentage of the US workforce. High-functioning anxiety is a latent mental state coupled with challenges faced due to their intersectional identities. This study examines the effectiveness of an online meditation lessons (OML) intervention in mitigating anxieties, enabling socio-cultural adaptation and wellbeing of professional US-based Indian immigrants as compared to online support group sharing sessions (OSGSS). OML attendees reported lower anxieties, better socio-cultural adaptation, self-construal, wellbeing, and psychological flourishing. OSGSS participants also reported statistically significant gains in socio-cultural adaptation scores. Latent class analysis revealed eight subgroups of participants likely to gain the most from OML: men, with doctoral and postdoctoral qualifications, university academics, medical professionals, currently married, cohabiting, above benchmark OML attendees and regular homework doers. With some refinements addressing specific issues of women, banking, and IT sector professionals, and singles, OML would be impactful for professional Indian immigrants to the US.