Cultural consonance and psychological distress: examining the associations in multiple cultural domains

Abstract

Cultural consonance is the degree to which individuals, in their own beliefs and behaviors, approximate widely shared cultural models. In previous research in Brazil and the United States we found that higher cultural consonance in the cultural domains of lifestyle and social support was associated with lower psychological distress. The aim of this paper is to expand on these results in two ways. First, the measurement of cultural consonance has been improved through a closer link of cultural domain analyses and survey research. Second, the number of domains in which cultural consonance has been examined has been expanded to include-along with lifestyle and social support-family life, national identity, and food. We found that cultural consonance in these five domains can be conceptualized as two latent variables of generalized cultural consonance, and that this generalized cultural consonance is associated with lower psychological distress. These results continue to support the usefulness of cultural consonance as a theoretical construct in the explanation of human social suffering.

Dominios culturales de la malaria: una aproximación a los saberes no institucionales

“…Como se había mencionado, Tierralta es uno de los municipios de Colombia con las incidencias más altas de paludismo (5), lo que se traduce en un aumento de las experiencias cotidianas de los habitantes de la región con la enfermedad y, por consiguiente, en mayores conocimientos y reflexiones colectivas en torno a ella (21,22); tales conocimientos se ven reflejados en dominios culturales estructurados y compartidos por las comunidades que definen los comportamientos Cuadro 6. Correlaciones de Spearman de los índices de Smith obtenidas por vereda al indagar sobre los responsables del control de la malaria Figura 1.…”

Cultural Consonance, Religion and Psychological Distress in an Urban Community

“…Also, we have found that individuals who are culturally consonant in one domain tend to be consonant in other domains, resulting in a generalized cultural consonance. Higher cultural consonance is associated with lower psychological distress (Balieiro, et al, 2011;Dressler, et al, 2002;Dressler, et al, 2007aDressler, et al, , 2007b; lower arterial blood pressure (Dressler & Santos, 2000;Dressler, Balieiro & Santos, 1998;Dressler, Balieiro, Ribeiro, & Santos, 2005); and, lower body mass index (Santos, Oths, & Dressler, 2001;Dressler, Oths, Ribeiro, Balieiro, & Santos, 2008;Dressler, Oths, Balieiro, Ribeiro, & Santos, 2012). These associations can be observed both for cultural consonance in specifi c cultural domains, and for generalized cultural consonance.…”

“…These neighborhoods are described in more detail elsewhere (Dressler, Ribeiro, Balieiro, Oths, & Santos, 2004;Dressler et al, 2007a).…”

“…When examined in the context of cultural domains that defi ne major life goals, cultural consonance can be thought of as a measure of "success" in your society, because you are seen by others as achieving those goals that are collectively defi ned as important. And, the higher one's cultural consonance, the lower the psychological distress (Dressler, 2007(Dressler, , 2012Dressler, Balieiro, & Santos, 2002;Dressler, Balieiro, Ribeiro & Santos, 2007a, 2007b. In all of these studies, cultural consonance is associated with psychological distress independently of socioeconomic status and other measures of life stress, and other measures of life stress do not mediate the effects of cultural consonance (Balieiro, Santos, Santos, & Dressler, 2011).…”

Polarization and Segregation through Conformity Pressure and Voluntary Migration: Simulation Analysis of Co-Evolutionary Dynamics

“…8 In medical anthropology, William Dresser and his coauthors study the health consequences of cultural discontents/consonances. They develop a measurement of cultural consonance [20] and find that it correlates with the health conditions of minorities [21,22]. See also the literature review [23].…”