Culture in Asian American Community Psychology: Beyond the East�CWest Binary

In response to a call to better integrate culture in community psychology (O'Donnell in American Journal of Community Psychology 37:1-7 2006), we offer a cultural-community framework to facilitate a collaborative engagement between community psychologists and ethnic minority communities, focusing on Asian American communities as illustrations. Extending Hays' (Addressing cultural complexities in practice: Assessment, diagnosis, and therapy, American Psychological Association, Washington, DC, 2008) ADDRESSING framework for considering cultural influences on a counseling relationship, the proposed framework provides a broad but systematic guidepost for considering three major cultural-ecological influences on Asian American communities: Race and Ethnicity (R), Culture (C), and Immigration and Transnational Ties (I). We provide a sequence of steps that incorporate the ADDRESSING and the RCI frameworks to facilitate the collaborative community-based research or social action.     

Extreme response style as a cultural response to climato‐economic deprivation

We investigated the effects of climato‐economic harshness on extreme response style. Climato‐economic theorising postulates that a more threatening climate in poorer countries, in contrast to countries with a more comforting climate and richer countries with a more challenging climate, triggers intolerance of ambiguity and uncertainty avoidance inherent to conservatism, in‐group favouritism and autocracy. Scores of extreme response style at country level, a proxy of this cluster of cultural characteristics, were extracted from students' responses in the Programme for International Student Assessment to test the hypothesis. In a series of hierarchical regression analysis across 64 countries, cold demands, heat demands and GDP per capita showed a highly significant interaction effect on extreme response style, predicting in total 30.7% of the variance. Extreme response style was highest in poorer countries with higher climatic demands, and lowest in richer countries with lower climate demands. Implications are discussed.     

The experience of stuttering among Ultra-Orthodox and Secular/Traditional Jews

PurposeThis groundbreaking research compares the experience of stuttering among adult male People Who Stutter (PWS) from the ultra-Orthodox (UO) Jewish community in Israel to those from Secular/Traditional (ST) backgrounds.MethodsParticipants were 32 UO and 31 ST PWS, aged 18–67 years. Self-report questionnaires utilized: Perceived Stuttering Severity (PSS); Overall Assessment of the Speaker's Experience of Stuttering (OASES-A); Students’ Life Satisfaction Scale (SLSS); Situation Avoidance Behavior Checklist (SABC). Demographic, religious, and stuttering information was collected. Groups were compared on scales, and correlations between scales and the PSS.ResultsSubjective stuttering severity ratings were significantly higher among the UO. A significant group effect was found for the OASES-A quality of life subscale, but not other subscales. Significant positive correlations were found between: 1) PSS and OASES-A Total Impact; 2) PSS and 3 OASES subscales; and 3) PSS and SABC (indicating increased avoidance with increased stuttering severity rating). A significant negative correlation was found between the PSS and SLSS, indicating lower life satisfaction with higher rates of stuttering severity among the ST. Interestingly, when tested by group, significant correlations between the PSS and all other study measures were observed only among the ST.ConclusionUO participants showed higher subjective stuttering severity ratings, yet less impact on quality of life, and no correlation between subjective stuttering and other measures of stuttering experience. These novel findings may result from the combined protective effect of religiosity and socio-cultural characteristics on UO PWS’ well-being, despite heightened concern about social consequences of stuttering within UO society.     

Automatic Mechanisms for Social Attention Are Culturally Penetrable

Are mechanisms for social attention influenced by culture? Evidence that social attention is triggered automatically by bottom‐up gaze cues and is uninfluenced by top‐down verbal instructions may suggest it operates in the same way everywhere. Yet considerations from evolutionary and cultural psychology suggest that specific aspects of one's cultural background may have consequence for the way mechanisms for social attention develop and operate. In more interdependent cultures, the scope of social attention may be broader, focusing on more individuals and relations between those individuals. We administered a multi‐gaze cueing task requiring participants to fixate a foreground face flanked by background faces and measured shifts in attention using eye tracking. For European Americans, gaze cueing did not depend on the direction of background gaze cues, suggesting foreground gaze alone drives automatic attention shifting; for East Asians, cueing patterns differed depending on whether the foreground cue matched or mismatched background cues, suggesting foreground and background gaze information were integrated. These results demonstrate that cultural background influences the social attention system by shifting it into a narrow or broad mode of operation and, importantly, provides evidence challenging the assumption that mechanisms underlying automatic social attention are necessarily rigid and impenetrable to culture.     

Thinking and feeling in the People's Republic of China: testing the generality of the "laws of emotion"

Cognitive theories of emotion assert that emotional reactions to events depend on the manner in which events are interpreted and appraised. From this perspective, the same outcome can produce different emotions. For example, a score of 85% on a test can evoke positive feelings if it is considered a success or negative feelings if it is considered a failure. Among the various appraisal dimensions that have been identified, causal attributions are thought to play a particularly influential role in shaping emotional reactions to various events. For example, success can evoke pride if it is attributed to high ability, gratitude if it is attributed to help from others, relief if it is attributed to a stroke of good fortune, or guilt if it is attained fraudulently or at the expense of others. These cognitive-affective linkages are thought to be universal. In this paper, we report two studies that tested the cross-cultural generality of some of these assumptions. In Study 1, participants from the People's Republic of China were led to succeed or fail on an (alleged) test of their intelligence and creativity. Consistent with previous findings with Western samples, attributions to ability predicted participants' emotional reactions to their test performance, with high ability attributions linked to greater pride following success. In Study 2, we extended these findings with American and Chinese participants, using a different experimental manipulation of success and failure, and a measure of attributions to effort. For both cultural groups, attributions to ability (but not attributions to effort) predicted greater emotional reactions to success. We conclude that attribution-emotion linkages have cross-cultural validity, and that pride is maximized when success is attributed to high ability.     

“Put Your Money Where Your Love Is”: Parental Aid to Adult Children

Qualitative data are used to examine parents’ support to their adult children, and their motivations and feelings about it. The sample is 40 adult children and parents from four racial/ethnic groups: African-Americans, Asian-Americans, non-Latino Whites, and Latinos. Ideals of adult independence versus interdependence emerge as determinants of feelings about aiding adult children. The ambivalence concept provides the means to elucidate the tensions between these ideologies and children’s structurally shaped circumstances. Parental assistance to adult children was seen as acceptable for education, home ownership, and on behalf of young children, especially if the child was “working hard.” Parents still provided aid, however, even if these conditions were not met. In these situations, more intrafamilial tension characterized the aid transfer.     

Culture, power, authenticity and psychological well-being within romantic relationships: A comparison of European American and Mexican Americans

This study investigated possible cultural differences in the association of power, authentic self-expression, and well-being within romantic relationships. Participants (N = 314) included European American students from a central Texas university and Mexican American students from a border university. Results indicated that power inequality was associated with a lack of authentic self-expression among men and women in both populations, although a three-way interaction between sex, culture, and power indicated that Mexican American men responded differently than other groups. Results also indicated that a lack of authenticity negatively impacted psychological health, especially for Mexican Americans. Findings suggest that authentic self-expression is one of the primary ways in which power inequality impacts close interpersonal relationships, and that gender and cultural variables must be examined simultaneously when considering the link between power and authenticity.     

A cross-cultural study of trait self-enhancement, explanatory variables, and adjustment

We investigated trait self-enhancement, explanatory variables, and adjustment in European American (n = 141), Asian American (n = 72), Mexican (n = 141), and Filipino (n = 174) college students. Consistent with trait perspectives, students in all cultural groups rated their traits with moderate to high accuracy, using peer ratings as a criterion. European Americans did not exhibit self-enhancement relative to peers, but both self and peer ratings were higher (i.e., more positive) for European Americans than for the other three groups. Support was found for some, but not all, cultural psychology explanations of self-enhancement. In all cultural groups, self-enhancement was more associated with personal (intrapsychic) adjustment than interpersonal adjustment, as judged by peers. The results provided support for an integration of trait and cultural psychology perspectives.     

Do community and autonomy moral violations elicit different emotions?

According to one important set of theories, different domains of immorality are linked to different discrete emotions—panculturally. Violations against the community elicit contempt, whereas violations against an individual elicit anger. To test this theory, American, Indian and Japanese participants (N = 480) indicated contempt and anger reactions (with verbal rating and face selection) to both the types of immorality. To remedy method problems in previous research, community and autonomy violations were created for the same story‐frame, by varying the target to be either the community or an individual. Community and autonomy violations did not differ significantly in the emotion elicited: overall, both types of violations elicited more anger than contempt (and more negative emotion of any kind than positive emotion). By verbal rating, Americans and Indians reported more anger than contempt for both types of violation, whereas Japanese reported more contempt than anger for both types. By face selection, the three cultural groups selected anger more than contempt for both types of violation. The results speak against defining distinct domains of morality by their association with distinct emotions.     

Cultural differences in attitude toward and effects of self‐doubt

It has been argued that the high achievement of Confucian Asian students is at the cost of their psychological well‐being, since high self‐doubt consistently accompanies their high achievement. However, other researchers cautioned that the attitude toward self‐doubt could be different in Asian versus Western cultures. This study examined the debate with a survey of both American and Chinese college students that measured level of self‐doubt, attitude toward self‐doubt, beliefs about ability, and psychological well‐being outcomes. As hypothesized, Chinese students showed a more positive attitude toward self‐doubt than American students, despite having higher level of self‐doubt. Furthermore, self‐doubt engendered less negative consequences on Chinese students' psychological well‐being, relative to American students. Implications for theories and research on cultural differences in the effects of self‐constructs are discussed.