Experiences of Help-Seeking for Severe Mental Health Problems in Young Pakistani Women: A Preliminary Qualitative Study
Almost three quarters of mental illnesses start by the age of 25, yet youth (18-25-year-olds) are often underrepresented in U.K. services. This is particularly true for those of ethnic minorities. In this study, we aimed to understand how young Pakistani women and their parents make decisions to seek help for severe mental health problems, and the barriers and facilitators to accessing professional help. Young Pakistani women with experience of severe mental health problems and their parents were recruited from a community sample. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with six young people and two parents. Data were analyzed using reflexive thematic analysis. Pakistani culture and its interplay with British culture strongly influenced the decisions and ability of young Pakistani women and their parents to help-seek, largely through the role of stigma. Low mental health literacy, stigma, and a lack of culturally informed services were identified as the most common barriers to accessing care. These barriers fed into the internalized stigma these young women experienced which, through fear of damaged reputation and personal prejudices, posed further barriers to seeking help. Participants highlighted recommendations for both individual-level (e.g., increased education and awareness) and service-level (e.g., greater choice over care) change to facilitate accessibility of professional help. Young Pakistani women face multiple culturally related challenges to accessing care for severe mental health problems at both the individual- and service-level. Novel suggestions to address these challenges, such as including youth peer support workers in services, may facilitate more inclusive and accessible services.
Honor Values as Identity Content: Evidence From a Three-Wave Longitudinal Study
Reputation refers to the set of judgments a community makes about its members. In cultures of honor, reputation constitutes one of the most pressing concerns of individuals. Reputational concerns are intimately intertwined with people's social identities. However, research has yet to address the question of how honor-related reputational concerns are structured at the within-person level vis-à-vis individuals' identification with relevant group memberships. The present longitudinal study investigated the association between social identification and reputational concerns in southern Italy ( = 1,173), a little-studied culture of honor. Specifically, using a random intercept cross-lagged panel model, we tested whether reputational concerns predict, are predicted by, or are bidirectionally linked to individuals' identification with their region, a group membership relevant for the endorsement of honor. Findings revealed a positive association at the within-person level between group identification and subsequent honor-related concerns. Longitudinal paths from reputational concerns to identification were not significant. Implications of the findings and directions for future research are discussed.
To Be in Harmony: Chinese American Adolescents' and Parents' Bicultural Integration During the COVID-19 Pandemic
Experiences of racial discrimination have been found to be associated with internalizing problems among ethnic-racial minority youth. However, mediating and moderating processes that might explain this association is less well understood. Thus, the present study aimed to examine whether Chinese American adolescents' bicultural identity integration harmony (BII-Harmony) mediated the association between their experiences of racial discrimination and internalizing behaviors. Furthermore, we examined the moderating role of their parents' BII-Harmony in this mediation model. Chinese American adolescents ( = 13.9 years; = 2.3; 48% female) reported their experiences of racial discrimination and BII-Harmony, and their parents ( = 46.2 years; = 5.2; 81% mothers) reported their BII-Harmony and their children's internalizing difficulties. Chinese American adolescents' racial discrimination experiences were negatively associated with BII-Harmony, and in turn, more internalizing problems, but only when their parents also reported low and mean levels of BII-Harmony.
Facilitating Cross-Cultural Adaptation: A Meta-Analytic Review of Dispositional Predictors of Expatriate Adjustment
This meta-analytic review examines the relationship between various dispositional characteristics and expatriate adjustment, including the Big Five constructs and other characteristics that have garnered more recent empirical attention (i.e., cultural empathy/flexibility, cognitive intelligence, emotional intelligence). Using 62 primary studies ( = 13,060), we found that the Big Five traits play an important role in expatriate adjustment; however, when assessing the relative influence of these predictors, characteristics such as cultural empathy, cultural intelligence (e.g., motivational CQ), and emotional intelligence appear to exert a stronger influence on adjustment outcomes. Various cultural variables (cultural distance, cultural tightness, gender inequality in the host country) and year of publication were found to moderate some relationships, indicating that sociocultural factors may temper some of these effects.
Unattended Emotional Prosody Affects Visual Processing of Facial Expressions in Mandarin-Speaking Chinese: A Comparison With English-Speaking Canadians
Emotional cues from different modalities have to be integrated during communication, a process that can be shaped by an individual's cultural background. We explored this issue in 25 Chinese participants by examining how listening to emotional prosody in Mandarin influenced participants' gazes at emotional faces in a modified visual search task. We also conducted a cross-cultural comparison between data of this study and that of our previous work in English-speaking Canadians using analogous methodology. In both studies, eye movements were recorded as participants scanned an array of four faces portraying fear, anger, happy, and neutral expressions, while passively listening to a pseudo-utterance expressing one of the four emotions (Mandarin utterance in this study; English utterance in our previous study). The frequency and duration of fixations to each face were analyzed during 5 seconds after the onset of faces, both during the presence of the speech (early time window) and after the utterance ended (late time window). During the late window, Chinese participants looked more frequently and longer at faces conveying congruent emotions as the speech, consistent with findings from English-speaking Canadians. Cross-cultural comparison further showed that Chinese, but not Canadians, looked more frequently and longer at angry faces, which may signal potential conflicts and social threats. We hypothesize that the socio-cultural norms related to harmony maintenance in the Eastern culture promoted Chinese participants' heightened sensitivity to, and deeper processing of, angry cues, highlighting culture-specific patterns in how individuals scan their social environment during emotion processing.
Culture Moderates the Relationship between Family Obligation Values and the Outcomes of Korean and European American College Students
Family obligation values have been described as an important element of collectivistic cultures that are related to the development of positive emotional well-being and motivation in high school and college students. The present study tested the hypothesis that culture moderates the relationship between family obligation values and the outcomes of Korean ( = 249) and European American ( = 251) college students. The results provided support for this hypothesis. Specifically, for Koreans, family obligation values were significantly and positively correlated with descriptions of parents as being more supportive of the self-determination of their children, which was found to mediate the relationship between family obligation values and student outcomes. Furthermore, family obligation values were more strongly associated with the motivation, self-esteem, and depression of Koreans than European Americans. European American students expressed lower family obligation values and the intensity of these values were unrelated to their emotional well-being. Family obligation values were positively correlated with reports of self-determined motivation for Korean students, and negatively correlated with reports of self-determined motivation for European American students. The results are discussed in terms of cultural moderation and self-determination theory.
Early Learning Environments for the Development of Attention: Maternal Narratives in the United States and Japan
A large body of research has demonstrated cross-cultural differences in visual attention, especially between members of North American societies (e.g., Canada, United States) and East Asian societies (e.g., China, Japan, Korea). Despite an increasing number of studies suggesting an emergence of cross-cultural differences in early childhood, relatively little is known about how these culturally divergent patterns of attention are acquired and maintained. It has been largely assumed that socialization practices, especially parent-child interactions, contribute to the acquisition of cross-cultural differences in attention. By focusing on maternal narratives during the shared reading activity, this study examined the socialization contexts in which mothers direct their infants' attention in the United States ( = 50 dyads) and Japan ( = 53 dyads). Mothers in the United States and Japan read a picture book to their 6- to 18-month-old infants in the lab, and maternal narratives were coded to identify attention to focal objects and social interactions. Infants' sustained attention was also measured during shared reading. The findings demonstrated that during the shared reading activity, U.S. mothers were relatively more likely to focus on the focal objects than the background, whereas Japanese mothers were more likely to refer to the social interactions between focal objects and the background. Infants' age and gender were not related to maternal narratives, and infants' sustained attention was similar across cultures. Findings suggest significant cross-cultural differences in mother-infant interactions, which may act as scaffolds for infants to internalize their parents' cognitive styles.
Language Proficiency, Parenting Styles, and Socioemotional Adjustment of Young Dual Language Learners
Dual language learners (DLLs) make up 32% of all children in the U.S. Past research showed that proficiency in a heritage language (HL) was associated with better psychological adjustment in school-aged children and adolescents, but the associations of HL and English (EL) proficiency to preschool-aged DLLs' socioemotional adjustment remain understudied. This study included a sample of low-income Mexican and Chinese immigrant families with preschool-aged DLLs ( = 90). Children's HL and EL proficiencies were assessed using language tests. Parents rated their own cultural orientations, parenting styles, and children's socioemotional adjustment. Children's expressed anger/frustration and sadness were observed from an emotion-evoking task. Path analyses were conducted to test: 1) the unique relations of children's HL and EL proficiency and parents' American and heritage cultural orientations to parenting styles, and 2) the relations of parenting styles to children's adjustment. Results showed that children's expressive HL proficiency and parents' American and heritage cultural orientations were positively associated with authoritative parenting, which in turn, was associated with children's lower externalizing problems and higher prosocial behaviors. Children's expressive EL was negatively associated with parents' use of authoritarian parenting, and both expressive and receptive HL were negatively associated with children's expressed sadness. These results indicate that children's HL development and parents' host and heritage cultural orientations are associated with socioemotional benefits for young DLLs growing up in low-income immigrant families.
Cross-Country Differences in Parental Reporting of Symptoms of ADHD
Previous studies within the United States suggest there are cultural and contextual influences on how Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) symptoms are perceived. If such influences operate within a single country, they are likely to also occur between countries. In the current study, we tested whether country differences in mean ADHD scores also reflect cultural and contextual differences, as opposed to actual etiological differences. The sample for the present study included 974 participants from four countries tested at two-time points, the end of preschool and the end of 2 grade. Consistent with previous research, we found lower mean ADHD scores in Norway and Sweden in comparison to Australia and the United States, and we tested four explanations for these country differences: 1) Genuine etiological differences, 2) Slower introduction to formal academic skills in Norway and Sweden than in the United States and Australia that indicated a context difference, 3) Under-reporting tendency in Norway and Sweden, or 4) Over-reporting tendency in the United States and Australia. Either under-or over-reporting would be examples of cultural differences in the perception of ADHD symptoms. Of these explanations, results of ADHD measurement equivalence tests across countries rejected the first three explanations and supported the fourth explanation: an over-reporting tendency in the United States and Australia. These findings indicate that parental reporting of ADHD symptoms is more accurate in Norway and Sweden than in Australia and the United States, and thus have important clinical and educational implications for how parental reporting informs an ADHD diagnosis in these countries.
Cultural Values, Social Status, and Chinese American Immigrant Parents' Emotional Expressivity
Cultural values and social status are two salient factors in the psychological experiences of immigrant families, and both have been associated with immigrant parents' patterns of emotional expression in previous studies. The present study examined how endorsement of cultural values (collectivism and conformity) and social status were uniquely associated with immigrant parents' emotional expressivity in the family. First-generation Chinese American immigrant parents ( 239, 80% mothers; = 41.31 years old) of elementary-age children reported on their endorsement of values of collectivism and conformity, their patterns of emotional expressivity in the family context, and their family income and education levels. Path analyses indicated unique positive associations between family income and all domains of parents' emotional expressivity and negative associations between family income and parents' endorsement of collectivism and conformity. Parents' endorsement of collectivism was negatively associated with negative-dominant expressivity. We discuss implications of our findings for theories of culture and emotion, as well as for future intersectional approaches with Asian American populations.
Remote Acculturation and Cigarette Smoking Susceptibility among Youth in Mexico
Many adolescents in majority world countries emulate U.S. American culture, which can influence their development. Globalization allows adolescents from majority world countries to learn about U.S. American culture through mass media and the exchange of information via the internet and other forms of communication. As such, youth in Mexico may experience remote acculturation, which can influence their smoking behaviors. We developed and tested a measure of remote acculturation (i.e., orientation to U.S. American and Mexican culture) among adolescents in Mexico and examined the association of remote acculturation with adolescents' smoking-related cognitions. Data came from a school-based survey of 5492 never-smoker, urban adolescents (51% female, age = 14.07 years). Confirmatory factor analyses supported two latent factors-one for U.S. American and another for Mexican cultural orientation. Structural equation models revealed that stronger Mexican cultural orientation was associated with lower positive smoking-related attitudes, which were related with lower smoking susceptibility. Consistent with research on acculturation among U.S. Hispanic youth, findings indicate that stronger orientation toward U.S. culture may put adolescents in Mexico at risk for cigarette smoking, while greater orientation toward Mexican culture may prevent youth smoking in Mexico. We discuss directions for future research and policymaking strategies to prevent youth smoking in Mexico.
Dimensions and Dynamics of National Culture: Synthesizing Hofstede With Inglehart
Cross-national research on cultural differences across space and time intersects multiple disciplines but the prominence of concepts varies by academic fields. Hofstede's concept of culture, to begin with, dominates in cross-cultural psychology and international management. Inglehart's concept of culture, by contrast, prevails in sociology and political science. We argue that this disciplinary division is unfortunate because the two concepts are complementary, for which reason a synthesis rectifies their mutual weaknesses. Indeed, while Hofstede's concept neglects cultural dynamics, Inglehart's concept is dimensionally reductionist. We demonstrate empirically that combining these two concepts leads to an improved understanding of cultural differences. Inspired by Hofstede's cultural dimensions, we use data from the European Value Studies and World Values Surveys for 495,011 individuals born between 1900 and 1999 in 110 countries and then show that change on these dimensions proceeds as Inglehart and his collaborators suggest. Most notably, younger generations have become more individualistic and more joyous. But even though economic development and generational replacement drive this cultural change, roughly half of the variation in national cultural orientations is unique to each country, due to lasting intercept differences in developmental trajectories that trace back to remote historic drivers. We discuss the implications for cross-national cultural research.
How Universal Is the General Factor of Personality? An Analysis of the Big Five in Forager Farmers of the Bolivian Amazon
In various personality models, such as the Big Five, a consistent higher order general factor of personality (GFP) can be identified. One view in the literature is that the GFP reflects general social effectiveness. Most GFP studies, however, have been conducted in Western, educated, industrialized, and rich democracies (WEIRD). Therefore, to address the question of the universality of the GFP, we test whether the GFP can also be identified in a preliterate indigenous sample of Tsimane by using self-reports, spouse reports, and interviewer ratings. In the Tsimane, a viable GFP could be identified and the intercorrelations between personality traits were significantly stronger than in samples from industrial countries. The GFP correlated with the ratings of social engagement. In addition, self and spouse ratings of the GFP overlapped. Overall, the findings are in line with the notion that the GFP is a human universal and a substantive personality factor reflecting social effectiveness.
Got Milk? How Freedoms Evolved From Dairying Climates
The roots and routes of cultural evolution are still a mystery. Here, we aim to lift a corner of that veil by illuminating the deep origins of encultured freedoms, which evolved through centuries-long processes of learning to pursue and transmit values and practices oriented toward autonomous individual choice. Analyzing a multitude of data sources, we unravel for 108 Old World countries a sequence of cultural evolution reaching from (a) ancient climates suitable for dairy farming to (b) lactose tolerance at the eve of the colonial era to (c) resources that empowered people in the early industrial era to (d) encultured freedoms today. Historically, lactose tolerance peaks under two contrasting conditions: cold winters and cool summers with steady rain versus hot summers and warm winters with extensive dry periods (Study 1). However, only the cold/wet variant of these two conditions links lactose tolerance at the eve of the colonial era to empowering resources in early industrial times, and to encultured freedoms today (Study 2). We interpret these findings as a form of gene-culture coevolution within a novel thermo-hydraulic theory of freedoms.
Europe's Culture(s): Negotiating Cultural Meanings, Values, and Identities in the European Context
The intent of this Special Issue is to be a starting point for a broadly-defined European cultural psychology. Across seven research articles, the authors of this Special Issue explore what European culture(s) and European identity entail, how acculturation within the European cultural contexts takes place and under what conditions a multicultural Europe might be possible. The Special Issue also discusses what is currently missing from the research agenda. Therein, the findings of this Special Issue constitute an important starting point for future psychological research that accompanies Europe along its journey into the 21 century.
Exploring Cultural Differences in Expressive Suppression and Emotion Recognition
Previous research has shown that the habit of suppressing emotional expressions is associated with long-term, general reductions in social cognitive abilities and interpersonal adjustment. This may be because theoretically, habitual suppression requires the fixation of attention to the self instead of to others. The present research explored the association between the habitual tendency to suppress one's own emotions and accuracy in recognizing the emotions of others. Emotion recognition accuracy was tested across two tasks, a limited-channel task that presents limited emotional information and a multimodal full-channel task. We further explored cultural differences in this association given that expressive suppression may be normative for individuals of Asian descent due to cultural motivations toward social harmony and interdependence. Our findings revealed few cultural group differences. U.S.-born Asian Americans outperformed foreign-born Asian Americans and European Americans in limited-channel emotion recognition. However, the three groups did not differ in terms of interdependent self-construal, habitual emotion suppression, and full-channel emotion recognition ability. Interdependent self-construal was related to greater habitual suppression and emotion recognition accuracy in the full-channel task. Habitual emotion suppression was negatively related to limited-channel but not full-channel emotion recognition. There was no evidence of cultural differences in the link between habitual suppression and emotion recognition.
Religion and National Identification in Europe: Comparing Muslim Youth in Belgium, England, Germany, the Netherlands, and Sweden
How inclusive are European national identities of Muslim minorities and how can we explain cross-cultural variation in inclusiveness? To address these questions, we draw on large-scale school-based surveys of Muslim minority and non-Muslim majority and other minority youth in five European countries (Children of Immigrants Longitudinal Survey [CILS]; Belgium, England, Germany, the Netherlands, and Sweden). Our double comparison of national identification across groups and countries reveals that national identities are less strongly endorsed by all minorities compared with majority youth, but national identification is lowest among Muslims. This descriptive evidence resonates with public concerns about the insufficient inclusion of immigrant minorities in general, and Muslims in particular, in European national identities. In addition, significant country variation in group differences in identification suggest that some national identities are more inclusive of Muslims than others. Taking an intergroup relations approach to the inclusiveness of national identities for Muslims, we establish that beyond religious commitment, positive intergroup contact (majority friendship) plays a major role in explaining differences in national identification in multigroup multilevel mediation models, whereas experiences of discrimination in school do not contribute to this explanation. Our comparative findings thus establish contextual variation in the inclusiveness of intergroup relations and European national identities for Muslim minorities.
Seeing Mixed Emotions: The Specificity of Emotion Perception From Static and Dynamic Facial Expressions Across Cultures
Although perceivers often agree about the primary emotion that is conveyed by a particular expression, observers may concurrently perceive several additional emotions from a given facial expression. In the present research, we compared the perception of two types of nonintended emotions in Chinese and Dutch observers viewing facial expressions: emotions which were morphologically similar to the intended emotion and emotions which were morphologically dissimilar to the intended emotion. Findings were consistent across two studies and showed that (a) morphologically similar emotions were endorsed to a greater extent than dissimilar emotions and (b) Chinese observers endorsed nonintended emotions more than did Dutch observers. Furthermore, the difference between Chinese and Dutch observers was more pronounced for the endorsement of morphologically similar emotions than of dissimilar emotions. We also obtained consistent evidence that Dutch observers endorsed nonintended emotions that were congruent with the preceding expressions to a greater degree. These findings suggest that culture and morphological similarity both influence the extent to which perceivers see several emotions in a facial expression.
Associations Between Parenting Styles and Perceived Child Effortful Control Within Chinese Families in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Taiwan
The current study examined the associations between parentally perceived child effortful control (EC) and the parenting styles of 122 Chinese mothers (36 first-generation Chinese immigrants in the United Kingdom, 40 first-generation Chinese immigrants in the United States, and 46 Taiwanese mothers) of 5- to 7-year-old ( age = 5.82 years, = .805; 68 boys and 54 girls) children. The findings showed significant cultural group differences in mothers' reported authoritarian parenting style. Significant associations also emerged between mothers' reports of their children's EC and some parenting dimensions, although there were no cultural group differences in perceived child EC. Different patterns of associations between perceived child EC and parenting styles in these three groups also demonstrated heterogeneity within the Chinese population, and highlighted the need to consider differences between original and receiving societies when seeking to understand parenting and child development in different immigrant groups.
Imagining Her Future: Diversity in Mothers' Socialization Goals for Their Adolescent Daughters
According to developmental niche theory, members of different cultural and ethnic groups often have distinct ideas about what children need to become well-adapted adults. These beliefs are reflected in parents' long-term socialization goals for their children. In this study, we test whether specific themes that have been deemed important in literature on diverse families in the United States (e.g., Strong Black Woman [SBW], marianismo, familismo) are evident in mothers' long-term socialization goals. Participants included 192 mothers of teenage daughters from a low-income city in the United States (58% Latina, 22% African American, and 20% European American [EA]/White). Socialization goals were assessed through a q-sort task on important traits for a woman to possess and content analysis of open-ended responses about what values mothers hoped they would transmit to their daughters as they become adults. Results from ANCOVAs and logistic regression indicate significant racial/ethnic differences on both tasks consistent with hypotheses. On the q-sort task, African American mothers put more importance on women possessing traits such as independence than mothers from other racial/ethnic groups. Similarly, they were more likely to emphasize self-confidence and strength in what they hoped to transmit to their daughters. Contrary to expectation, Latina mothers did not emphasize social traits on the q-sort; however, in open-ended responses, they were more likely to focus on the importance of motherhood, one aspect of marianismo and familismo. Overall, results suggest that these mothers' long-term socialization goals incorporate culturally relevant values considered important for African American and Latino families.
Adolescent Misconduct Behaviors: A Cross-Cultural Perspective of Adolescents and Their Parents
The primary goal of the current study was to examine cultural differences in Chinese and U.S. adolescents' and parents' perceptions and evaluations of adolescent misconduct behaviors. A total of 395 U.S. and Chinese adolescents (ages 11-19 years) and 255 parents participated in this study. Each participant generated adolescent misconduct behaviors and rated each misconduct behavior as to the degree of wrongness. The misconduct behaviors were coded into 10 categories across three themes (moral offenses, drugs, and conventions). Results revealed significant cultural differences in a number of adolescent misconduct behaviors. For example, the United States generated more misconduct behaviors in weapon offenses and drug use than did China. These cultural differences were further complicated by an interaction between culture and generation. Chinese adolescents were more likely than U.S. adolescents to use categories of school, home, and social conventional violations, and considered these adolescent misconduct behaviors to be more wrong. However, it was the U.S. parents who considered adolescent misconduct behaviors in these categories to be more wrong than did Chinese parents.