Depression and emotional reactivity: Variation among Asian Americans of East Asian descent and European Americans.

Studies of Western samples (e.g., European Americans [EAs]) suggest that depressed individuals tend to show diminished emotional reactivity (J. G. Gehricke & A. J. Fridlund, 2002; G. E. Schwartz, P. L. Fair, P. Salt, M. R. Mandel, & G. L. Klerman, 1976a, 1976b). Do these findings generalize to individuals oriented to other cultures (e.g., East Asian cultures)? The authors compared the emotional reactions (i.e., reports of emotional experience, facial behavior, and physiological reactivity) of depressed and nondepressed EAs and Asian Americans of East Asian descent (AAs) to sad and amusing films. Their results were consistent with previous findings: Depressed EAs showed a pattern of diminished reactivity to the sad film (less crying, less intense reports of sadness) compared with nondepressed participants. In contrast, depressed AAs showed a pattern of heightened emotional reactivity (greater crying) compared with nondepressed participants. Across cultural groups, depressed and nondepressed participants did not differ in their reports of amusement or facial behavior during the amusing film. Physiological reactivity to the film clips did not differ between depressed and control participants for either cultural group. Thus, although depression may influence particular aspects of emotional reactivity across cultures (e.g., crying), the specific direction of this influence may depend on prevailing cultural norms regarding emotional expression. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Cultures of Moderation and Expression: Emotional Experience, Behavior, and Physiology in Chinese Americans and Mexican Americans.

Ethnographic accounts suggest that emotions are moderated in Chinese cultures and expressed openly in Mexican cultures. The authors tested this notion by comparing subjective, behavioral, and physiological aspects of emotional responses to 3 (warned, unwarned, instructed to inhibit responding) aversive acoustic startle stimuli in 95 Chinese Americans and 64 Mexican Americans. Subjective reports were consistent with ethnographic accounts; Chinese Americans reported experiencing significantly less emotion than Mexican Americans across all 3 startle conditions. Evidence from a nonemotional task suggested that these differences were not artifacts of cultural differences in the use of rating scales. Few cultural differences were found in emotional behavior or physiology, suggesting that these aspects of emotion are less susceptible to cultural influence. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Optimism and Pessimism as Mediators of the Relations Between Self-Discrepancies and Distress Among Asian and European Americans.

The authors examined the role of undesired self-discrepancies in predicting emotional distress among Asian and European Americans, whether undesired self-discrepancies are stronger predictors of distress for Asian than for European Americans, and whether optimism and pessimism mediate the relations between ideal, ought, and undesired self-discrepancies and emotional distress. Self-identified Asian/Asian American (n = 140) and European American (n = 189) college students completed measures of self-discrepancies, optimism/pessimism, social anxiety, and depressive symptoms. Results show that for both Asian Americans and European Americans, greater similarity to the undesired self is equally predictive of symptoms of depression, whereas distance from the undesired self is more predictive of social anxiety for Asian Americans than for European Americans. Furthermore, pessimism fully mediates the relations between undesired self-discrepancies and depressive symptoms for both Asian Americans and European Americans, although pessimism was a stronger predictor of depression for European Americans than for Asians/Asian Americans. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Self-focused attention and emotional reactivity: The role of culture.

Research conducted with European Americans suggests that attention to the individual self intensifies emotional reactivity. We propose, however, that cultural models of the self determine which aspect of the self (individual vs. relational), when attended to, intensifies emotional reactivity. In 3 studies, we predicted and observed that attention to individual aspects of the self was associated with levels of emotional reactivity that were greater in individuals from European American contexts (which promote an independent model of the self) than in individuals from Asian American contexts (which promote an interdependent model of the self). In contrast, attention to relational aspects of the self was associated with levels of emotional reactivity that were similar or greater in individuals from Asian American than in individuals from European American contexts. These findings highlight the importance of considering cultural and situational factors when examining links between the self and emotion. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Examining the relations between rumination and adjustment: Do ethnic differences exist between Asian and European Americans?

Past studies have pointed to the dysfunctional nature of rumination in adults. However, past research has not examined ethnic variations. Accordingly, this study examined ethnic differences in rumination in 184 Asian American and 238 European American college students. Consistent with expectations, Asian Americans were found to ruminate more than European Americans. However, rumination was found to have a weaker association with measures of adjustment (viz., affectivity, depressive symptoms, anxious symptoms, and life satisfaction) in Asian Americans compared with European Americans. As a result of conducting regression analyses to determine whether rumination was a unique predictor of functioning beyond affectivity, we found rumination to be a more distinct and useful predictor of functioning for Asian Americans than for European Americans. Overall, compared with findings for European Americans, our findings indicate that important ethnic differences need to be considered in studying rumination in Asian Americans. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Autonomic, subjective, and expressive responses to emotional films in older and younger Chinese Americans and European Americans.

Previously, the authors found that during idiosyncratic emotional events (relived emotions, discussions about marital conflict), older European American adults demonstrated smaller changes in cardiovascular responding than their younger counterparts (R. W. Levenson, L. L. Carstensen, W. V. Friesen, & P. Ekman, 1991; R. W. Levenson, L. L. Carstensen, & J. M. Gortman, 1994). This study examined whether such differences held when the emotional events were standardized, and whether they extend to another cultural group. Forty-eight old (70–85 years) and 48 young (20–34 years) European Americans and Chinese Americans viewed sad and amusing film clips in the laboratory while their cardiovascular, subjective (online and retrospective), and behavioral responses were measured. Consistent with previous findings, older participants evidenced smaller changes in cardiovascular responding than did younger participants during the film clips. Consistent with earlier reports, old and young participants did not differ in most subjective and behavioral responses to the films. No cultural differences were found. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Culture and Social Support: Who Seeks It and Why?

Are Asians and Asian Americans more or less likely to seek social support for dealing with stress than European Americans? On the one hand, the collectivist orientation of Asian countries might favor the sharing of stressful problems; on the other hand, efforts to maintain group harmony might discourage such efforts. In 2 studies, Koreans (Study 1) and Asians and Asian Americans in the United States (Study 2) reported using social support less for coping with stress than European Americans. Study 3 examined potential explanations for these effects and revealed that relationship concerns accounted for the cultural differences in use of support seeking. Discussion centers on the potential benefits and liabilities of seeking social support. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Informal exchanges with non-kin among retired sunbelt migrants: a case study of a Finnish American retirement community

OBJECTIVES: This study examined informal exchanges with non-kin among retired Sunbelt migrants, with special emphasis on the impact of ethnic enclaves in generating exchanges of instrumental assistance and emotional support among elderly European Americans. METHODS: Data were collected through interviews with four samples of elders: Finnish Americans who migrated to an ethnic retirement community in Florida; European Americans who migrated to the same community but are not part of an ethnic enclave; Finnish Americans living in an age-integrated setting in Minnesota; and retired European Americans living in the same Minnesota community. RESULTS: Migrants were less likely than elders aging-in-place to report informal exchanges with non-kin. Finnish American migrants were less likely than other European American migrants to provide instrumental assistance to non-kin but were more likely to anticipate relying on informal long-term care support, regardless of proximity to kin. There were no differences in the two migrant samples in exchanges of emotional support. DISCUSSION: Evidence regarding substitution of non-kin for geographically distant kin is mixed. Results are consistent with a strategy of "banking" support, at the community level among the Finnish American migrants and at the network level among other European American migrants.     

Epistemological beliefs' contributions to study strategies of Asian Americans and European Americans.

Given the increasingly culturally diverse composition of students in American classrooms, understanding the nature of cultural differences is necessary to generate effective instructional interventions. This study examines the individual differences in epistemological beliefs, ways of knowing, study strategies, and academic performance among different cultural groups. These cultural groups include European Americans (Americans of European ancestry) and first and successive generations of Asian Americans. College junior and senior business majors completed instruments assessing epistemological beliefs, ways of knowing, and study strategies. Multivariate analyses of variances revealed significant differences among cultural groups in 5 study strategies (low anxiety, selecting main ideas, testing strategies, high motivation, and information processing), course grades, and reading comprehension. Regression analyses revealed that beliefs about learning speed, knowledge construction, characteristics of successful students, and separate knowing contributed to cultural differences. This study highlights the need to avoid strong stereotyping and to consider individual differences in the classroom. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Emotions in memories of success and failure: A cultural perspective.

Americans and Chinese tend to behave differently in response to success and failure: Americans tend to persist on a task after success, whereas Chinese tend to persist after failure. This study examined whether cultural differences in emotional reactions to success and failure account for these differences. American and Chinese students recalled personal success and failure events, evaluated the primary emotion evoked by the event, and responded to measures of concerns, appraisals, and willingness to try the same task again. Americans were more likely than Chinese to report that their success enhanced their self-esteem. Chinese were more likely than Americans to estimate that their success would make others jealous and enhance others' respect for their family. Chinese, compared to Americans, viewed failures as more tolerable, as less problematic for their goals, and as less damaging to their self-esteem. Culture moderated the relations between these components of emotion and willingness to try the task again. In short, culturally framed emotional reactions to success and failure result in different patterns of anticipated self-regulation. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Cultural and temperamental variation in emotional response.

To examine the relative influence of cultural and temperamental factors on emotional response, we compared the emotional behavior, reports of emotional experience, and autonomic responses of 50 European American (EA) and 48 Chinese American (CA) college-age dating couples during conversations about conflicts in their relationships. EA couples showed more positive and less negative emotional behavior than did CA couples, despite similarities in reports of emotional experience and autonomic reactivity. Group differences in emotional behavior were mediated by cultural (values and practices) but not temperamental factors (neuroticism and extraversion). Collapsing across groups, cultural factors accounted for greater variance in emotional behavior but lesser variance in reports of emotional experience compared with temperamental factors. Together, these findings suggest that the relative influence of cultural and temperamental factors on emotion varies by response component. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Age and ethnicity differences in storytelling to young children: Emotionality, relationality and socialization.

Research has shown that age and ethnicity are associated with individuals' motivations for emotional regulation and social interaction. The authors proposed that these age and ethnicity-related motives would be reflected in storytelling. Women representing 2 age and 2 ethnic groups (young adulthood, old age, African American, European American) told stories to young girls. Stories were coded for emotional, relational, and socialization focus. They predicted that older adults would selectively emphasize positive over negative emotions and would direct more utterances toward their interaction with their listener. The authors expected that African Americans would be more likely to emphasize socialization themes. Results suggest that older adults positively modulate emotional content while storytelling; qualified support was found for hypotheses concerning socialization and interrelational emphasis. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The value-congruence model of memory for emotional experiences: An explanation for cultural differences in emotional self-reports.

In 3 studies, the authors found support for the value-congruence model that accounts for cultural variations in memory for emotional experiences. In Study 1, the authors found that in the made-in-the-U.S. scenario condition, European Americans were more accurate than were Asian Americans in their retrospective frequency judgments of emotions. However, in the made-in-Japan scenario condition, European Americans were less accurate than were Asian Americans. In Study 2, the authors demonstrated that value orientation mediates the Culture×Type of Event congruence effect. In Study 3 (a daily event sampling study), the authors showed that the congruence effect was explained by the importance of parental approval. In sum, emotional events congruent with personal values remain in memory longer and influence retrospective frequency judgments of emotion more than do incongruent events. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Subjective, behavioral, and physiological reactivity to ethnically matched and ethnically mismatched film clips.

This study examined whether individuals from 4 major ethnic groups within the United States (African American, Chinese American, European American, and Mexican American) showed greater subjective, behavioral, and physiological responses to emotional film clips (amusement, sadness, and disgust) with actors from their own ethnic group (ethnically matched) compared with actors from the other 3 ethnic groups (ethnically mismatched). Evidence showed greater responsivity to ethnically matched films for African Americans and European Americans, with the largest effect for African Americans. These findings were consistent across both sex and level of cultural identification. Findings of ethnic difference notwithstanding, there were many areas in which ethnic differences were not found (e.g., little or no evidence was found of greater response to ethnically matched films in Chinese-American or Mexican- American participants). These findings indicate that the emotional response system clearly reacts to stimuli of diverse ethnic content; however, the system is also amenable to subtle "tuning" that allows for incrementally enhanced responding to members of one's own ethnic or cultural group. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Rethinking individualism and collectivism: Evaluation of theoretical assumptions and meta-analyses.

Are Americans more individualistic and less collectivistic than members of other groups? The authors summarize plausible psychological implications of individualism-collectivism (IND-COL), meta-analyze cross-national and within-United States IND-COL differences, and review evidence for effects of IND-COL on self-concept, well-being, cognition, and relationality. European Americans were found to be both more individualistic--valuing personal independence more--and less collectivistic--feeling duty to in-groups less--than others. However, European Americans were not more individualistic than African Americans, or Latinos, and not less collectivistic than Japanese or Koreans. Among Asians, only Chinese showed large effects, being both less individualistic and more collectivistic. Moderate IND-COL effects were found on self-concept and relationality, and large effects were found on attribution and cognitive style. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Proud Americans and lucky Japanese: Cultural differences in appraisal and corresponding emotion.

Appraisal theories of emotion propose that the emotions people experience correspond to their appraisals of their situation. In other words, individual differences in emotional experiences reflect differing interpretations of the situation. We hypothesized that in similar situations, people in individualist and collectivist cultures experience different emotions because of culturally divergent causal attributions for success and failure (i.e., agency appraisals). In a test of this hypothesis, American and Japanese participants recalled a personal experience (Study 1) or imagined themselves to be in a situation (Study 2) in which they succeeded or failed, and then reported their agency appraisals and emotions. Supporting our hypothesis, cultural differences in emotions corresponded to differences in attributions. For example, in success situations, Americans reported stronger self-agency emotions (e.g., proud) than did Japanese, whereas Japanese reported a stronger situation-agency emotion (lucky). Also, cultural differences in attribution and emotion were largely explained by differences in self-enhancing motivation. When Japanese and Americans were induced to make the same attribution (Study 2), cultural differences in emotions became either nonsignificant or were markedly reduced. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

American = White?

Six studies investigated the extent to which American ethnic groups (African, Asian, and White) are associated with the category "American." Although strong explicit commitments to egalitarian principles were expressed in Study 1, Studies 2-6 consistently revealed that both African and Asian Americans as groups are less associated with the national category "American" than are White Americans. Under some circumstances, a dissociation between mean levels of explicit beliefs and implicit responses emerged such that an ethnic minority was explicitly regarded to be more American than were White Americans, but implicit measures showed the reverse pattern (Studies 3 and 4). In addition, Asian American participants themselves showed the American = White effect, although African Americans did not (Study 5). The American = White association was positively correlated with the strength of national identity in White Americans. Together, these studies provide evidence that to be American is implicitly synonymous with being White. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Emotion and aging: Experience, expression, and control.

Age differences in emotional experience, expression, and control were investigated in 4 studies. A community sample of 127 African Americans and European Americans (ages 19–96 years) was used in Study 1; a community sample of 82 Chinese Americans and European Americans (ages 20–85 years) was used in Study 2; a community sample of 49 Norwegians drawn from 2 age groups (ages 20–35 years and 70+ years) was used in Study 3; and a sample of 1,080 American nuns (ages 24–101 years) was used in Study 4. Across studies, a consistent pattern of age differences emerged. Compared with younger participants, older participants reported fewer negative emotional experiences and greater emotional control. Findings regarding emotional expressivity were less consistent, but when there were age differences, participants reported lesser expressivity. Results are interpreted in terms of increasingly competent emotion regulation across the life span. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Help-seeking tendencies in Asian Americans with suicidal ideation and attempts.

Among rising concerns surrounding heightened suicide in certain subgroups of Asian Americans, it is important to understand the help-seeking rates and pathways among Asian Americans experiencing suicidality. This study examined perceived need for care, help-seeking behavior, and chosen sources of care among Asian Americans compared with Latinos in the National Latino and Asian American Study who reported a history of lifetime suicidal ideation, suicide attempts, or mental disorders without history of suicide. Consistent with existing literature in Caucasians, suicide attempts in Asian Americans and Latinos were related to greater help seeking and perceived need beyond that of mental disorders only. However, Asian Americans with suicide attempts still reported lower perceived need and help-seeking behaviors compared with Latinos. In contrast to both the existing literature and Latinos in this study, Asian Americans with suicidal ideation were no more likely to perceive a need for help or seek help than Asian Americans with a mental disorder without history of suicide and were less likely to seek and perceive a need for help than Latinos with suicidal ideation. These findings point to the idea that Asian Americans who have serious suicidal ideation or attempts may underestimate the importance of their condition and do not receive the level of attention and support needed. Findings also show that Asian Americans with suicidal ideation and attempts prefer seeking help from nonprofessional rather than professional sources of help, other than medical professionals. Clinical implications for outreach, assessment, and management of suicide are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)