Impact of culture on autobiographical life structure in depression

Abstract

The majority of the literature investigating depression pertains to individuals from European Western cultures, despite recognition that depression ranks as one of the most debilitating diseases worldwide. This raises questions as to whether current depression models and interventions can be applied universally or whether they are limited to European Western groups. The current study found that pan-culturally those with MDD had similar structuring of their life story relative to controls. However, there were some cultural differences that need to be considered (e.g., Malay individuals provided less detailed, less elaborate and less emotionally diverse life stories and while the British MDD group had greater compartmentalization than British controls, the Malay MDD group had lower levels of compartmentalization than Malay controls). Limitations of the study included group differences in gender and mood at the time of testing. Cultural differences in the number of attributes used may have influenced findings. Only the Malay group completed the individualism-collectivism measure.

Proof of Concept for the Autobiographical Memory Flexibility (MemFlex) Intervention for Posttraumatic Stress Disorder

“…Although the MemFlex intervention was developed in an Englishspeaking Western setting, our study provides initial support for the efficacy of the intervention in a Middle Eastern cultural setting. Autobiographical memory deficits have been observed across a variety of languages and cultures (e.g., Jobson et al, 2016Jobson et al, , 2018, thus the intervention may be suitable for translation into different languages. Because the initial face-to-face session has now been effectively delivered by undergraduate and postgraduate students without any counseling or therapeutic training, the intervention could lend itself well to delivery by nonexperts (e.g., teachers, other health practitioners, minimally trained volunteers).…”

The impact of depression and culture on responses to intrusive autobiographical memories: Cognitive appraisals, cognitive avoidance, and brooding rumination

“…While our results are contrary to past cross‐cultural research with non‐clinical samples, they are consistent with accumulating clinical research indicating that psychopathology is associated with similar distortions in voluntary autobiographical remembering across cultures. For instance, pan‐culturally, those with depression, when compared to healthy controls, have been found to retrieve significantly fewer specific autobiographical memories (Dritschel et al ., ) and exhibit a negativity bias in the structure of their autobiographical life stories (Jobson et al ., ). Furthermore, pan‐cultural autobiographical memory distortions have been found in individuals with high trauma exposure (Humphries & Jobson, ) and PTSD (Jobson et al ., ).…”

Cultural Influence on Clinical Features of Depression

“…In individualist societies, a person is encouraged for autonomy, independence, self-assertion, and a sense of self-agency. Whereas in a collectivist society, a person is encouraged to respect authority, have a sense of social responsibility or a sense of social attachment, and be in harmony with their environment [13,20,21]. Depression can be presented with psychological symptoms as well as somatic symptoms that are influenced by cultural variations in individuals.…”