Understanding East-West Differences in Social Anxiety: The Roles of Culturally-Tuned Attentional Processes
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2018-12
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Psychology
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University of Hawaii at Manoa
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Abundant research has shown that Asian Americans and Japanese nationals tend to score higher on standardized measures of social anxiety than do European Americans. The current study examined two cultural differences that may help explain higher scores of social anxiety among people of East Asian-heritage: selective attention toward social threat and independent/interdependent construal of the self in relation to others. Study 1 found cultural group mean differences among 310 Asian Americans, 249 Japanese nationals, and 212 European Americans in social anxiety, selective attention, and independent self-construal. Differences in interdependent self-construal were only found between Asian Americans and European Americans. A series of structural equation models were also fit in order to test for the statistical mediation of the cultural group differences in social anxiety through selective attention and self-construal. A model containing a double mediation of selective attention through independent self-construal successfully partially mediated cultural group differences. Study 2 re-examined the assertions of Study 1 by examining the mediation of selective attention through quasi-experimental manipulation. 42 Asian Americans, 34 Japanese nationals, and 28 European Americans were randomly assigned to an attention training condition where they were trained to attend to a threatening face or a non-threatening face. A general linear model provided mixed evidence for partial mediation with only two of eight interaction effects statistically significant in post-experimental measures of self-report, physiological, and behavioral indicators of social anxiety. The findings of this study may help raise cultural awareness of mental health professionals who may otherwise misinterpret or even pathologize experiences that may be rather normative in non-Western cultural contexts.
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