Anna S. Lau

Maladaptive perfectionism and depressive symptoms among Asian American college students: contributions of interdependence and parental relations.

Maladaptive perfectionism among Asian Americans may represent a shared social construction socialized within an interdependent cultural script. The authors hypothesized that interdependence concerns and parental relations may explain elevated maladaptive perfectionism and associated depressive symptoms in a sample of 140 Asian American college students. Survey findings revealed that interdependence, maladaptive perfectionism, and parent-driven perfectionism were associated with depressive symptoms. Regression analyses revealed that interdependence moderated the relationship between maladaptive perfectionism and depressive symptoms such that highly interdependent Asian American students appeared more vulnerable to depression when demonstrating perfectionistic tendencies. Parental support buffered subjects from distress associated with parent-driven perfectionism. Processes of heightened cultural vulnerability and sensitization to maladaptive perfectionism are discussed.

Explaining elevated social anxiety among Asian Americans: Emotional attunement and a cultural double bind

Previous research has documented elevated levels of social anxiety in Asian American college students when compared with their European American peers. The authors hypothesized that higher symptoms among Asians could be explained by cultural differences in attunement to the emotional states of others. Socialization within interdependent cultures may cultivate concerns about accurately perceiving others emotional responses, yet at the same time, norms governing emotional control may limit competencies in emotion recognition. A sample of 264 Asian American and European American college students completed measures of social anxiety, attunement concerns (shame socialization and loss of face), and attunement competencies (self-reported sensitivity and performance on emotion recognition tasks). Results confirmed that ethnic differences in social anxiety symptoms were mediated by differences in attunement concerns and competencies in emotion recognition. Asian American college students may find themselves in a double bind that leads to social unease because of a cultural emphasis on sensitivity to others emotions in the midst of barriers to developing this attunement skill set.

Physical Discipline in Chinese American Immigrant Families: An Adaptive Culture Perspective

Research on ethnic minority parenting has examined heritage cultural influences and contextual stressors on parenting processes. However, rarely are adaptive cultural processes considered, whereby ethnic minority parents bring their cultural values to bear in adapting to contextual demands in the host society. A survey of 107 Chinese American immigrant parents examined whether use of physical discipline can be predicted by cultural values, contextual stressors, and their interactions. Results indicated that distinct domains of cultural values were related to physical discipline in disparate ways, with some values decreasing risk and others indirectly increasing risk. There was some evidence that cultural values interacted with contextual stress to predict physical discipline. Parent-child acculturation conflicts were only related to physical discipline when parents held strong values about the importance of firm parental control. The findings illustrate how heritage cultural influences and current ecological demands may converge to shape parenting in immigrant families.

Cultural differences in daily support experiences.

Previous research has suggested that Asian Americans (AAs) are less likely to mobilize social support, and find support to be less helpful, when compared with European Americans (EAs). In a 10-day daily diary study of AA and EA college students, we hypothesized that AAs would activate support less frequently than EAs for both stressful and positive events, a cultural difference that would be mediated by group harmony values. We also predicted that AAs would find support to be less helpful, and we explored differences in the sources of support used. Results confirmed that cultural differences in support use were partially mediated by the value of maintaining group harmony through emotional restraint. AAs also perceived received support to be less helpful and more frequently used discretionary rather than kinship support sources. Findings suggest that naturalistic support experiences differ markedly for these groups, with implications for help-seeking behavior and mental health services.

Cultural differences in emotion regulation during self-reflection on negative personal experiences

Reflecting on negative personal experiences has implications for mood that may vary as a function of specific domains (e.g., achievement vs. interpersonal) and cultural orientation (e.g., interdependence vs. independence). This study investigated cultural differences in the social-cognitive and affective processes undertaken as Easterners and Westerners reflected on negative interpersonal and performance experiences. One hundred Asian Americans and 92 European-American college students were randomly assigned to one of three conditions: interpersonal rejection, achievement failure, or a control condition. Results revealed that Asian Americans experienced greater distress than European Americans after self-reflecting over a failed interpersonal experience, suggesting cultural sensitivity in the relational domain. Consistent with theoretical predictions, analysis of the social cognitive and affective processes that participants engaged in during self-reflection provided some evidence that self-enhancement may buffer distress for European Americans, while emotion suppression may be adaptive for Asian Americans.

Do Self-Report Measures of Social Anxiety Reflect Cultural Bias or Real Difficulties for Asian American College Students?

Construal of the self as independent or interdependent in relation to others has been found to correlate significantly with social anxiety symptom ratings, raising concerns about possible cultural bias in these measures for Asian Americans. To investigate the validity of self-reported social anxiety symptoms, we examined the role of ethnicity in the associations among social anxiety, self-construal, and adaptive social functioning in a sample of 229 Asian- and European American college students. Results revealed that ethnicity moderated the relationship between self-construal and social anxiety such that interdependent self-construal was associated with higher social anxiety only for first generation Asian Americans. However, there were no significant ethnic differences in the associations between social anxiety self-reports and several measures of social functioning.

Revisiting the out-group advantage in emotion recognition in a multicultural society: further evidence for the in-group advantage.

Recent studies have accumulated supporting evidence for in-group advantage in emotion recognition, with individuals more accurately perceiving emotions expressed by cultural in-group members. However, inconsistent results appear in balanced-design studies involving the majority and minority groups residing within a single nation: There is an apparent pattern of an out-group advantage, implying that minority group members show heightened sensitivity toward emotional expressions of the majority group members. Two studies were conducted to further explore why the out-group advantage emerged in multicultural societies. In Study 1, based on a careful review of existing studies involving majority and minority groups, both new and previously reviewed, a new approach to assess the in-group and out-group advantage was proposed and applied. In Study 2, the minority out-group advantage was further tested in an experimental study. European American and Asian American students were asked to identify emotions of European and Asian Americans presented in static photos of imitated emotional expressions and full-channel video presentations of spontaneous emotional expressions. The results revealed that a mutual in-group advantage was observed in the spontaneous expressions condition, but not in the imitated expression condition. Significance and implications of the findings from this study are discussed regarding intergroup interactions in a multicultural society.

Methodological Challenges in Treatment Outcome Research With Ethnic Minorities

Treatment outcome research focused on ethnic minorities is critically needed to eliminate mental health disparities. Because the conduct of treatment outcome research with ethnic minorities is difficult and complex, we discuss key challenges and present some methodological options suited to provide answers to specific types of questions. We focus first on the randomized clinical trial (RCT) paradigm, reviewing specific challenges facing investigators conducting ethnically inclusive trials. We then highlight the promise of other methods of inquiry to expand the science on mental health treatment with ethnic minorities.

Mutual and Non-Mutual Social Support Cultural Differences in the Psychological, Behavioral, and Biological Effects of Support Seeking

Social support seeking is not uniformly beneficial for different cultural groups, and in fact, is experienced as less helpful and more distressing for Asians and Asian Americans compared with European Americans. However, relationship factors that may attenuate this cross-cultural difference are little understood. We examined the effects of mutual (i.e., interdependent) and non-mutual support on psychological, biological, and behavioral stress responses to support seeking using a laboratory stressor paradigm. Findings show that across all three distress indicators, East Asian Americans were more benefited when they construed support as mutual versus non-mutual, whereas European Americans’ response did not differ by support condition. Furthermore, the data support previous research showing that Asian Americans are more likely to seek support from discretionary (i.e., peers) than obligatory ties (i.e., parents). Our discussion addresses cultural differences in the priority placed on mutuality, interdependence, and harmony in relationships, and their implications for how people construe their relationships. Future areas for research are discussed.

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.