Topic 5 - Multicultural perspectives - part 1

Question 1

Culture: A fundamental context for the stress and coping paradigm
- Chun, Moos and Cronkite

Answer 1

• Culture is one of the most important areas to consider within stress and coping but is also one of the most neglected
• Chun et al. (2006)
• Previous body of literature was too general
• Aim of their research was to provide a more specific and conceptual framework for examining the relationship of stress and coping within a cultural context

Each panel is important to know!
An important to know is that it is a TRANSACTION - backwards occurence at each step - uses the context that are influencing.

Emphasis on both personal and environmental panels - we see transaction in the bidirectional arrows.

There might something going on in panel 1, affecting panel 3, which in turn affects panel 2, which may affect panel 1, etc.

Culture is fundamental in our experiences of the world
Culture is part of environmental system
Social climate = specific settings (related to ongoing stressors and ressources available)
Culture = “ecological/sociological” system?
Culture is the big circle = has not been discussed fully in other stress and coping models.
Except resource congruency model

Idea: all panels happen within cultural environment. So culture isn’t the specific social context (e.g. In school I guess, own guess), but more the “overall” placement.

Culture: highly complex, continually changing system of meaning that is learned, shared, transmitted and altered from one generation to another (Triandis, 1995).

Question 2

Culture (and individualism/collectivism)

Answer 2

Culture: highly complex, continually changing system of meaning that is learned, shared, transmitted and altered from one generation to another (Triandis, 1995).

• Individualism based cultures
• Self is a central unit of society
• Emphasis on
• Individual rights, immediate family, personal autonomy
• Collectivism based cultures
• Ingroup is the central unit of society
• Emphasis on
• Duty/obligation to ingroup, interdependence, fulfilment of social roles
 But we should consider it more as “både og” than “either or”

Question 3

Panel I: Environmental System

Answer 3

• Made of relatively stable conditions
• Includes
• Social climate
• Individualism: Independence and Autonomy
• Collectivism: Interdependence; Personal Sacrifice
• stressors and (social) resources
• Individualism: Self; Fewer social resources
• E.g. pressure to become independent and responsible for themselves since they were young.
• Collectivism: Pressure to maintain (good) relationships
• Social Networks
• Individualism: Relatively loose, weak and diverse
• distinction between ingroup and outgroup is not that strong
• Collectivism: Not clear, more variations
• many of people are living in extended family spread across different geological locations; some of them are living together which generate tight social bonds; but there’s few of them live far away from their family, so social network for collectivistic countries is not clear. But mostly they are tight and small.
• Culture sets the tone for the environmental system
• E.g. Social ressoources available - individualistic cultures tend to have bigger, more loose bonds, collectivist more tight knit –> can influence social context

To cope with stress in such a huge environmental system, there are four cross-cultural challenges we need to overcome:
•	Differences  languages
•	Differences non verbal communication
•	Differences in rules and conventions
•	Differences in norms and values

Question 4

Panel II: Personal System

Answer 4

• Biogenetic characteristics
• And resources
• Cognitive/intellectual abilities
• Self-confidence
• Social competence
• Optimism
• Commitments
• Aspirations
• Culture:
• Well documented in research
• Self-construal and personality traits
• Attribution (dispositional vs situational)
• Motivation
• These are all integral in stress and coping paradigm
• Cognitive Abilities
• Personality Traits versus Social Roles
• Indidivudalist countries likely to use personality traits to differentiate themselves, were collectivists use social roles
• Regulatory Focus
• Promotion Focus (Individualism) sensitive to positive outcomes
• Prevention Focus (Collectivism) sensitive to negative outcomes
• Social Competence
• Cultural Intelligence (CQ) = capacity to adapt to a culture
• Language Proficiency and Communication Competence
• Confidence
• Language Confidence
• Attribution e.g., Dispositional attribution=> individualism
• (compared to situation attribution)
• The difference between dispositional attribution and situational attribution is that dispositional attribution is the explanation that behavior is because of internal causes inside one’s self like personal traits while situational attribution is the explanation that behavior is because of the social pressure
• Locus of control e.g., External locus of control => collectivism
• LOC = Japense students attribute good and bad things to good and bad luck = external LOC

Question 5

Panel III: Transitory Conditions

Answer 5

• Life events
• Intervention/Treatment
• Culture:
• Pervasive influence on occurrence of life events (or stressors)
• Culture shape what is seen as stressful or challenging
• For certain stressors, depending on the cultural context, the stressors are gonne have an influence on basically what is seen as stressful (transitory conditions: if the condition is something that is seen as usual in the culture, it will likely not be regarded as stressful (personal example: maybe an arranged marriage would be considered normal in some countries and not cause tress/ cause less stress? But this is more related to exposure than “appraisal”)
• Two dimensions
• Independent vs. interdependent stressors
• Change vs. constancy

Transitory conditions: acute life events and changes occurring; conditions are then appraised as threats or challenges revealing if the individual is equipped for change (Wong & Wong, 2006).

• Individualistic vs. Collectivistic cultures in stress and coping
• Independent vs. interdependent stressors & change vs. constancy (Wong & Wong, 2006).
• Individualistic: freedom of choice = e.g. stress of inability to make a choice (independent stressor)
• Change = positive (opportunity for growth), Constancy = negative (threatens progress)
• Collectivistic: interdependence = e.g. ongoing burden of care for elder/impaired family members (interdependent stressor)
• Change = stability (bad I assume) (threat to potential stability and safety, Constancy = desirable (predictability allows for better control and management of a given situation)
• Cultural contexts influence events by shaping them as “normative” or “stressors” which intensifies or attenuates events as threatening.
• Japanese college students see interdependent events as more severe but controllable than independent events – The opposite was true for euro-canadian college students
• Individuals more vulnerable to see events as stressful when they threaten important cultural ideals

Question 6

Panel IV: Cognitive Appraisal and Coping Skills

Answer 6

• Approach and Avoidance
• Cognitive and Behaivoural actions
• Appraisal is important in how you decide if you can deal with the stressor.
• Cultural context can influence individual’s appraisal and their choice of coping strategies
• Coping goals (variation)
• Focus on the needs of self vs. needs of others
• Assert autonomy and independence vs. reinforce relatedness and interdependence
• Control external environment vs. internal self
• Maximize gain vs. minimize loss
• COPING GOALS are important, make sure you have an understanding of them!
• Collectivists may not seek out/ use group resources = more focused on PROTECTING the social resources. (they may have good resources, but may not use them)

COGNITIVE APPRAISAL
Primary Categories of Appraisal:
Harm / Loss
● Subject has already suffered physical / psychological damage
Threat
● Subject considers the stressor to potentially bring harm / loss
● Focus is on reducing potential damage
Challenge
● Subject considers the stressor to bring forth development if confronted properly
● Focus is on overcoming the challenge and becoming further developed
● Stress derived from confrontation is usually helpful to individual (Eustress)
The primary difference between threat and challenge categorizations is simply the individual’s focus on “Gain” vs. “Loss”

Individualistic: (Western)
- More likely to view neutral stressors as challenges rather than threats
Collectivistic: (Korean / Japanese / Chinese)
- More likely to view neutral stressors as threats
- More sensitive towards harm / loss and threat categories of stressors
Religiosity / Spirituality:
- Affected appraisal of stressors by promoting challenge categorization
- Hypothesized that religion promotes mindset of life’s trials being challenges to overcome
- Correlated positively with challenge perception even amongst students of collectivistic origin

COPING SKILLS
A culture’s characteristics can affect the outcomes that it’s inhabitants desire. As such, when assessing the proficiency of coping mechanisms affected by a culture, it’s first important to note the intended outcomes from using coping mechanisms. By knowing the desired outcome of a coping mechanism, we can discern why certain coping strategies are more effective than others cross-culturally
Individualistic Ideal: (Chun et al., 2006)
- Aims to remove the stressor completely
- Ideally will not need to compromise desires, remove those that do not allow for fulfillment
- Approach coping mechanisms preferred
Collectivistic Ideal: (Chun et al., 2006)
- Aims to mitigate negative effects of stressor and learn to coexist comfortably with stressors
- Willing to compromise desires in return for the longevity of relationships
- Avoidance coping mechanisms preferred

Provided these ideals, individuals from their respective cultures employ different strategies as their coping mechanisms

Individualistic Cultures (Approach-Based Coping): (Yeh et al., 2006)
- Often associated with internal locus of control - believe the have control + Acively seek out problems and handle them
- Strive to obtain further fulfillment rather than protect one’s own standing
- Actively seek out problems and change the environment to their will
- Coping mechanisms include direct confrontation, speaking up and defending oneself
Collectivistic Cultures (Avoidance-Based Coping): (Yeh et al., 2006)
- External locus of control, often believe that stressors are out of our control, bad luck for example
- Minimize losses of the group rather than seek out progress and development
- Accommodate the situation by changing oneself to match the situation
- Coping mechanisms involve seeking support from those who are familial / ethnically similar, authority figures such as elders, or resorting to fatalism to assume that nothing else could have been done

Question 7

Panel V: Health and Well-being

Answer 7

• Psychosocial Functioning
• Maturation etc.
• Traditionally coping research has focused on health outcomes with an underlying assumption that individuals cope to enhance their own health and well-being
• This assumption is not necessarily true:
• E.g. For collectivists, their goal might be to decrease stress of those around them / protect those around them.
• Authors suggest more holistic view of coping, in terms of individual’s coping goal, rather than this universal assumption.
• Culture has two important implications
• How coping outcome is defined and assessed
• How individuals experience and display health and well-being

Question 8

Wong’s resource congruence model

Answer 8

so this model hypothesizes that sufficient resources and appropriate use of these resources is essential for effective coping with deficits (or deviation from congruence) leading to ineffective coping and vulnerability to stress-related disorders.

Creative coping- refers to constantly developing a variety of resources that one can use which then reduces the potential to encounter stress in the future

Reactive coping starts as soon as a difficulty is identified (primary appraisal) - Highlight role of culture in CONGRUENT COPING STRATEGIES under reactive coping column - the coping strategies that are gonna be most effective, are the ones that are most “in line” with your culture

Protective coping- refers to coping behaviours which aim to conserve resources until you are able to invest further energy into creative coping development.

Question 9

Issues and Future Directions in the field

Answer 9

• Cultural Salience
• Culturally Sensitive Research Paradigm

Cultural salience = authors cautioned the reader to remain critical and not overemphasize the importance of culture.

Culture is probably more important when the stressor includes some aspect related to the culture.
We should think about culture that is important to the situation (it should have an active role in the stressor)
Overall, being midnful and not just blankly state that culture is important (without considering the context)

Terminology is often used overlappingly = create confusion.
= highlights need to use terminology more consistently
Authors offered idea of contextual framework:
Two dimensions:
• Focus of coping action: Approach/avoidance
• Direction of coping effort: Self/environment

Question 10

Contextual Framework

Answer 10

Two dimensions:
• Focus of coping action: Approach/avoidance
• Direction of coping effort: Self/environment

Inward approach:
Attempt to deal with stressor by controlling the self, e.g. meditation
Doing something INTERNALLY to deal with stressor)

Inward avoidance: Inward AVOIDING e.g. denial

Outward approach: E.g. Dealing with stressor by “controlling” external environment, problem solving

Outward avoidance = E.g. Social withdrawal (Withdrawing from environment) or outwardly venting (still not dealing with the stressor)

Pint from framework is on the individual, rather than on the collective. But the collective can be applied, e.g. A group might use inward avoidance coping.
KNOW THE EXAMPLES OF HOW THEY APPLY TO THE INDVIDUAL, and think about how they might apply more collectively.
Goal from authors: highlight the individual level, EMBEDDED in larger framework.

Goal of contextual framework = give context within coping.
Grew out of multicultural research - but also wanted to stress that the indvidual is within that, gives us a way to look at individual as embeeded in larger cultural frameowkr, and how a context might influence what is going on.