Asian American and White American Differences on Affective Distress Symptoms

Abstract

This study examined whether Asian Americans and White Americans would show differential patterns of reporting their levels of depressive and social anxiety symptoms depending on the method of reporting. Standard self-report measures of depressive, social anxiety, and somatic symptomatology as well as measures of cultural self- construal and social desirability were administered twice to Asian American and White American participants. The results showed that there were no interaction effects between ethnicity and reporting method in any of the self-report measures, both ethnic groups reported lower levels of depressive symptoms in interview condition than in written condition, and Asian Americans reported higher levels of social anxiety than White Americans on both interview and written conditions. The findings suggest that although the method of reporting does not differentially affect Asian Americans, there are persistent ethnic differences between Asian Americans and White Americans in the types and levels of distress they report.

Support, Depressive Symptoms, and the Stigma towards Seeking Mental Health Help

“…Superimposed on concerns about help-seeking are the differences in how emotional and psychological problems are perceived in Asian cultures. Not only have differences in the levels of distress between Asians and Euro-Caucasians been cited (Lorenzo, Frost, & Reinherz, 2000;Okazaki, 2000a), including higher rates of suicide ideation (Lau, Jernewall, Zane & Myers, 2002), but Asians also expressed a greater reluctance to seek professional mental health help compared to Euro-Caucasians (Heisel & Fusé, 1999). Thus, although friends and family may provide social support, its effectiveness may be limited with respect to diminishing the stigma associated with help-seeking.…”

Patterns of shyness in East-Asian and European-heritage students

“…Unfortunately, virtually all AH-EH comparison studies are based solely on self-reports. Confidence in those studies is bolstered by research showing that cultural differences in self-report shyness tend to be corroborated by interview data (Morishima, 1981;Okazaki, 2000), by occupational choice (Harrison, Harrison, & Park, 1999) and by epidemiological measures (Lynn & Hampson, 1975). Direct measurement of relevant behaviors, however, is rare.…”

Length of Residence, Cultural Adjustment Difficulties, and Psychological Distress Symptoms in Asian and Latin American International College Students

“…For example, Latinos have been found to report greater amounts of psychological symptomatology (e.g., depression) in comparison with some other racial or ethnic groups (e.g., Kemp, Krause, & Adkins, 1999;Siegel, Aneshensel, Taub, Cantwell, & Driscoll, 1998). Although Asians have been noted in some conceptual writings to generally underreport their levels of psychological distress because of cultural values related to emotional restraint (e.g., Sandhu, 1997;Sue & Sue, 2003), they have been found to endorse lower self-esteem, lower well-being, and higher psychopathology relative to other cultural groups in several research investigations (e.g., Okazaki, 1997Okazaki, ,2000. Because of these seemingly discrepant perspectives, we explored possible group membership differences in relation to the constructs in our investigation.…”