When a child has psychological problems, what determines whether adults will consider the problems serious or whether they will seek professional help? One determinant may be cultural: Prevailing social values may help set adult thresholds for concern over child problems. We explored this possibility, comparing adults in Thailand and the United States, two countries where social values and perspectives on childhood differ markedly. Thai and American parents, teachers, and clinical psychologists made judgments about two children, one with overcontrolled problems (e.g., shyness, fear) and one with undercontrolled problems (e.g., disobedience, fighting). Consistent with some of the literature on Thai Buddhist values, Thais (compared with Americans) rated problems of both types as less serious, less worrisome, less likely to reflect personality traits, and more likely to improve with time. Cross-national differences in perceived seriousness were more pronounced for parents and teachers than for psychologists, suggesting that professional culture may mitigate the effects of national culture. Evidently, adults' judgments about child clinical problems can differ markedly as a function of their cultural context. So much of our research on psychopathology is based in the West, particularly in North America, that we risk what Kennedy, Scheirer, and Rogers (1984) called a "monocultural science." This risk is significant because research on psychopathology is both the study of the actual behavior of individuals and the study of the lens through which society views that behavior. Because identical behavior is often viewed differently in different societies, judgments about whether a particular behavior pattern represents a serious problem or pathology may be shaped by the cultural context in which the behavior occurs. This phenomenon warrants special attention in research on child psychopathology. In contrast to adults, children rarely consider themselves disturbed and rarely refer themselves for treatment. Instead, parents, teachers, and mental health professionals play these roles, serving, in effect, as gatekeepers to child mental health care. Consequently, the degree of distress adults The study was supported through Grant 5 501 MH38240 from the National Institute of Mental Health, which we acknowledge with gratitude. We thank Elizabeth Barbee, Russell Proops, Suporn Pan, and Suwattana Sripuenpol for their assistance with data collection and reduction as well as Lauren White, whose own research helped to stimulate the present study. Finally, we thank the parents, staff, teachers, and psychologists who participated in the project for the time and thought they invested.

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Do cultural values and traditions influence the development of coping styles ? To address this question, we compared self-reports of coping by 6-14-year-olds in Thailand and the U.S. One hundred and forty-one children were interviewed about six common stressors: separation from a friend, injection in a doctor's office, adult anger, peer animosity, school failure, and physical injury. Children's self-reported coping methods were coded as overt or covert. Coping goals were coded as reflecting primary control (attempts to influence objective conditions), secondary control (attempts to adjust oneself to objective conditions), or relinquished control. Although findings revealed numerous cross-national similarities, there were also multiple main and interaction effects involving culture, suggesting that sociocultural context may be critical to our understanding of child coping. Consistent with literature on Thai culture, Thai children reported more than twice as much covert coping as American children for stressors involving adult authority figures (i.e. adult anger, injection in doctor's office). Thai children also reported more secondary control goals than Americans when coping with separation, but American children were five times as likely as Thais to adopt secondary control goals for coping with injury. The findings support a model of coping development in which culture and stressor characteristics interact, with societal differences most likely to be found in situations where culture-specific norms become salient.

To understand children's psychological problems and corresponding clinic referral patterns, we need to consider the impact of culture. Culturally mediated values and socialization practices may suppress development of some problems and foster others. Consider Thailand, a Buddhist nation, in which children's aggression and other undercontrolled behaviors are disapproved and discouraged, whereas their inhibition and other overcontrolled behaviors may often be condoned or even encouraged. We compared Thailand to the United States, where undercontrolled behavior among children seems more likely to be condoned. We recorded the behavior problems reported by parents in both countries (N -760) when they referred their child or adolescent for clinic treatment. Overcontrolled problems (e. g., somaticizing, fearfulness, nervous movements, worrying) were reported much more often for Thai than for U.S. youngsters; undercontrolled problems (e. g., disobedience, fighting, lying, arguing) were reported much more often for U.S. youth than for Thais. Overcontrolled problems were noted especially often among Thai adolescents, the group most exposed to traditional Buddhist teaching and most encouraged to inhibit outward expression of feelings. The findings sugest that culture, developmental level, and their interplay may be linked to substantial differences in the problems for which youngsters are referred for treatment.For years, researchers have known that culture can influence psychopathology and disturbed behavior, but most relevant research has been focused on adults (see Al-Issa, 1982;Draguns, 1982;Marsella, 1979). This is surprising because for most people the impact of culture is almost certain to be felt before the adult years. Culturally mediated values and expectations and the concomitant behavior of parents and other adults toward children and adolescents may well influence the types of behavior problems these youngsters show when they are distressed.Those same values and expectations may also color the attitudes and behavior of adults in response to various child problems when they do occur. To study these possibilities, one must meet two challenges, detailed here.