William W. Dressler

Organizational Culture and Innovation in Nonprofit Human Service Organizations

ABSTRACT This study examined the relationship between organizational culture and organizational innovativeness in a sample of nonprofit human service organizations in Alabama. It was hypothesized that cultural consensus and organizational values (the content of consensus) would be important predictors of organizational innovativeness. Leadership and size were included as control variables. Organizational innovativeness was inversely related to cultural consensus, positively correlated with the innovation and the aggressiveness value dimensions, and negatively correlated with the stability value dimension. It was not related to leadership but was positively related to size. In a regression analysis cultural consensus was the only significant predictor.

Lifestyle, stress, and blood pressure in a southern black community.

&NA; The effects of lifestyle incongruity on blood pressure were examined in research in an African‐American community in the southern United States. Lifestyle incongruity is defined as the extent to which a high status style of life (based on possession of material goods and exposure to mass media) exceeds an individuals occupational class. In a sample of 186 25‐ to 55‐year‐olds, higher arterial blood pressure was related to higher lifestyle incongruity, especially among persons aged 40–55. These effects were independent of perceived chronic social role stressors, a self‐report diagnosis of hypertension, age, sex, body mass, and skin color. Future research should examine more closely those social and psychological factors that might moderate the risk associated with lifestyle incongruity.

Measuring Cultural Consonance: Examples with Special Reference to Measurement Theory in Anthropology

A valid and reliable anthropological measurement must be culturally appropriate for a particular social setting. Justifying the appropriateness of a measurement often depends on the skill of the researcher in describing the ethnographic setting. This has resulted in valuable research, but it is difficult to systematize and lacks transparency. Here the authors present a measurement model for anthropology that links structured ethnographic methods—cultural domain analysis and cultural consensus analysis—to the assessment of individual behavior and personal beliefs. These procedures are illustrated with the concept of cultural consonance, or the degree to which an individual approximates in his or her own behavior or belief the shared cultural model in some domain. The concrete steps taken to develop measures of cultural consonance in four domains (lifestyle, social support, family life, and national characteristics) are described, and the reliability and validity of these measures are evaluated. This describes a measurement model for anthropology.

The cultural construction of social support in Brazil: associations with health outcomes.

The association of social support and healthoutcomes has received considerable attention inrecent years, but the cultural dimension of socialsupport has not been extensively investigated. Inthis paper, using data collected in a Braziliancity, we present results indicating that thoseindividuals whose reported access to social supportmore closely approximates an ideal cultural model ofaccess to social support have lower blood pressureand report fewer depressive symptoms and lowerlevels of perceived stress. The cultural model ofsocial support is derived using a combination ofparticipant observation, semi-structured interviews,and the systematic ethnographic technique ofcultural consensus modelling. These results arethen used to develop a measure of an individual‘sapproximation to that model of social support in asurvey of four diverse neighborhoods in the city(n = 250). We call this approximation to the idealcultural model of social support ‘culturalconsonance’ in social support. The association ofhealth outcomes with cultural consonance in socialsupport is independent of individual differences inthe reporting of social support, and of standardcovariates. In the case of blood pressure andperceived stress, it is independent of diet, andother socioeconomic and psychosocial variables. Theassociation with depressive symptoms is notindependent of other psychosocial variables. Theimplications of these results are discussed withrespect to research on cultural dimensions of thedistribution of disease.

John Henryism, gender, and arterial blood pressure in an African American community.

Objective To examine the interaction between gender and John Henryism in relationship to arterial blood pressure in an African American community in the Southern United States. It was hypothesized that, within this specific social and cultural context, John Henryism would be associated with blood pressure differently for men and women. Methods A cross-sectional survey of 600 persons, aged 25 to 65, was conducted in the African American community of a small Southern city. John Henryism was assessed using the 12-item John Henryism Scale for Active Coping. Blood pressure was assessed by conventional methods. Results The interaction effect between gender and John Henryism was assessed as a cross-product term in ordinary least squares regression analysis using arterial blood pressure as the dependent variable, and with logistic regression using hypertension as the dependent variable. This interaction effect was significant (p < .05) in relation to systolic blood pressure and hypertension, with the effect evident (p < .07) in relation to diastolic blood pressure. For men, as John Henryism increases, blood pressure and the risk of hypertension increases. For women, as John Henryism increases, blood pressure and the risk of hypertension decreases. Conclusions The association of the behavioral disposition of John Henryism with blood pressure is dependent on the gender of the individual. Men and women face differing cultural expectations and social structural constraints in this community. The sociocultural context modifies the meaning of the behavioral disposition, and hence its effects.

Social consistency and psychological distress.

Various hypotheses have been proposed regarding the stressful nature of a lack of consistency among different dimensions of social status. Three of these, termed respectively the status inconsistency, goal-striving stress, and lifestyle incongruity models, are evaluated with data collected in a southern black community. Of these three models, lifestyle incongruity proves the best predictor of depressive symptoms, in interaction with age. More symptoms are reported by younger persons whose style of life, assessed by material consumption patterns and adoption of cosmopolitan behaviors, exceeds their household social class. Implications of these results for theories of social consistency are discussed.

Social support, lifestyle incongruity, and arterial blood pressure in a southern black community

&NA; Social support is generally thought to modify or “buffer” the impact of stressful events and circumstances on health. There has been little exploration of how the definition and effect of support is modified by culture. In this paper, the role of social support in moderating the effect of a social stressor on arterial blood pressure is examined in a southern black community. Traditionally, support was available mainly within the extended family in African‐American culture. In the aftermath of social change, however, younger black people often find their experiences to be more consonant with their peers. It was hypothesized that kin support would moderate the effect of status incongruence on blood pressure for older persons, while nonkin support would moderate the effect for younger persons. This hypothesis was confirmed in a community study. Future research on social support, therefore, must take into account cultural factors influencing the meaning of social support from different sources.

Hypertension and Culture Change: Acculturation and Disease in the West Indies

This fascinating anthropological study gives a comprehensive overview of the relation between hypertension and culture change in the small town of Soufriere on St. Lucia in the Caribbean. The islands population exceeds 100,000 on 25 x 15 miles of mountainous agricultural terrain. The book is divided into an introductory section which discusses current theory of psychosocial and cultural factors in hypertension and presents the ethnography, economic system, local economy, and living conditions of his 100 subjects. The next part is concerned with the ways in which modernization has influenced the stresses the inhabitants of St. Lucia face and the institutional and individual means they have developed of coping with or adapting to these stresses. It examines the way in which these factors interact to influence the development of hypertension. The third part describes the ways in which hypertension is treated on the island. Widespread beliefs and practices, alternative to standard Western medicine, including the Rastafarian movement, are discussed. A concluding chapter assesses very knowledgeably the sources of frustration, anxiety, and suppressed anger intervening between the stress of St. Lucian life style and arterial pressure. The author effectively argues for a more subtle paradigm than simple stimulus-response with arousal of the sympathetic nervous system. He presents convincing data to support the hypothesis that sociocultural factors must be taken into account in determining the etiology of elevated blood pressure. Although his conclusions are based on only 100 male and female subjects, 40 to 49 years old, in the small town of Soufriere (5000 inhabitants), the methodology is well conceived and the statistics are adequate. This pilot study, conducted with intelligence and breadth of understanding, uncovers interesting and unexpected data. The results support the anthropological view that the effects of social disorganization, as indicated by court appearance, residence change, etc., can be countered by a system of multiple matings between individuals who form liaisons resulting in children, while both the man and the woman continue to live at home with their own parents. The child of such a union becomes part of the mothers household. The author shows that the mutually supportive social network resulting from multiple matings has a salutary affect on blood pressure (p <0.01). Persons with a high frequency of multiple matings and a low materialistic life style have the lowest mean blood pressure. Apparently this system of social support can effectively counter the emotional stress of disorganization. For the author shows that individuals with pretensions to a high materialistic life style who, nevertheless, suffer from low economic resources, as measured by occupation, have substantially higher blood pressure (p <0.001) than those who are consistently high or low in both dimensions or those who have economic resources in excess of their life style. The concept of psychological resources is then applied to show how some individuals can cope effectively and overcome the disadvantage of a high materialistic life style and a low economic status. This

Culture, Socioeconomic Status, and Coronary Heart Disease Risk Factors in an African American Community

In this paper, cultural influences are examined in the relationship between socioeconomic status and health. Cultural definitions of material lifestyles are investigated as a correlate of disease risk in an African American community in the rural South. A new technique—called “cultural consensus analysis”—is used to test for a cultural model of lifestyles indicative of success. Survey data are then used to operationalize the degree to which individuals adhere in their own behavior to that cultural model; this measure is referred to as “cultural consonance in lifestyle.” Cultural consonance in lifestyle is more strongly associated with hypertension and smoking (but not serum lipids) than are conventional measures of socioeconomic status (occupation, income, and education). These results suggest that the extent to which individuals are unable to live in accordance with cultural norms regarding lifestyles may contribute to the risk of coronary heart disease in the African American community.

Social context and psychosocial influences on blood pressure among American Samoans

This study explores social and explores social and economic influences on health within a model formulated to address explicitly both individual and household level phenomena. Dresslers lifestyle incongruity model is used as a basis from which to predict the effects of intracultural contexts of variability on blood pressure. The sample for this survey consists of 134 Samoan men and women living in American Samoa. Based on previous experience and ethnographic sources, two key intracultural contexts were examined; gender, i.e., male-female differences in response to psychosocial stress, and household employment as indicated by whether or not both spouses in a household are employed. Our analysis indicates that lifestyle incongruity, defined as the difference between the material culture presented by a household and the economic resources of the family, is significantly associated with both systolic and diastolic blood pressure. Furthermore, males and females show opposite blood pressure associations with both lifestyle incongruity (male blood pressure increases with increasing incongruity while female blood pressure does not) and household employment (male blood pressure is higher when both spouses work but female blood pressure is lower).