Culture and social support.

By Heejung S. Kim, D. Sherman, Shelley E. Taylor. American Psychologist, 2008

1,032 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Social support is one of the most effective means by which people can cope with stressful events. Yet little research has examined whether there are cultural differences in how people utilize their social support networks. A review of studies on culture and social support presents evidence that Asians and Asian Americans are more reluctant to explicitly ask for support from close others than are European Americans because they are more concerned about the potentially negative relational consequences of such behaviors. Asians and Asian Americans are more likely to use and benefit from forms of support that do not involve explicit disclosure of personal stressful events and feelings of distress. Discussion centers on the potential implications of these findings for intercultural interactions and for the use of mental health services by Asians and Asian Americans.

Subfields: Clinical Psychology, Social Psychology

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/2a0a3ea8ce243eb55085f218d38c3738e8f6f1aa

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Citations in the corpus

Culture Moderates the Relation Between Perceived Stress, Social Support, and Mental and Physical Health (2016, background): “One reason that stress has different implications for mental and physical health across cultural groups may lie in cultural differences in the ways that social support is construed, sought, and used to buffer the damaging long-term effects of stress (e.g., H. S. Kim et al., 2008; Wang & Lau, 2015).”
Friends and family: A cross-cultural investigation of social support and subjective well-being among college students (2013, background): “Indeed, cross-cultural researchers posit that the differences in support-seeking and perceptions of support have been directly tied to culture (Aune & Aune, 1995; Kim et al., 2008; Mortenson et al., 2006).”
The association between social relationships and depression: a systematic review. (2015, background): “%) concluded the opposite [66.6% (2/3) cross-sectional low (Ford et al., 2011, Ostberg and Lennartsson, 2007); 33.3% (1/3) prospective moderate (Koizumi et al., 2005)].”
Making the good even better: A review and theoretical model of interpersonal capitalization (2018, background): “For example, research by Kim, Sherman, and Taylor (2008) suggests that in more collective cultures, people may be relatively more reluctant to seek social support explicitly and they tend to benefit more from support that is provided without explicit reference to a negative stressor.”