Cultural diversity & ethnic minority psychology
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Cultur Divers Ethnic Minor Psychol · Oct 2008
Comparative StudyHorizontal and vertical dimensions of individualism-collectivism: a comparison of African Americans and European Americans.
The current study examined ethnic differences in horizontal and vertical dimensions of individualism and collectivism among 96 African American and 149 European American college students. Participants completed the 32-item Singelis et al. (1995) Individualism/Collectivism Scale. Multivariate analyses of variance results yielded a main effect for ethnicity, with African Americans being significantly higher on horizontal individualism and European Americans being higher on horizontal collectivism and vertical individualism. ⋯ Individualism and collectivism were significantly and positively associated among African Americans, but not associated among European Americans. In addition, collectivism was related to grade point average for African Americans but not for European Americans. Contrary to the prevailing view of individualism-collectivism being unipolar, orthogonal dimensions, results provide support for individualism-collectivism to be considered as unipolar, related dimensions for African Americans.
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Cultur Divers Ethnic Minor Psychol · Jan 2008
Comparative StudyAsian and European American cultural values and communication styles among Asian American and European American college students.
The present study examined the relationships between adherence to Asian and European cultural values and communication styles among 210 Asian American and 136 European American college students. A principal components analysis revealed that, for both Asian Americans and European Americans, the contentious, dramatic, precise, and open styles loaded onto the first component suggesting low context communication, and interpersonal sensitivity and inferring meaning styles loaded onto the second component suggesting high context communication. Higher adherence to emotional self-control and lower adherence to European American values explained Asian Americans' higher use of the indirect communication, while higher emotional self-control explained why Asian Americans use a less open communication style than their European American counterparts. When differences between sex and race were controlled, adherence to humility was inversely related to contentious and dramatic communication styles but directly related to inferring meaning style, adherence to European American values was positively associated with precise communication and inferring meaning styles, and collectivism was positively related to interpersonal sensitivity style.
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Cultur Divers Ethnic Minor Psychol · Oct 2007
Acculturative stress, social support, and coping: relations to psychological adjustment among Mexican American college students.
This study examined the relations between acculturative stress and psychological functioning, as well as the protective role of social support and coping style, in a sample of 148 Mexican American college students (67% female, 33% male; mean age = 23.05 years, SD = 3.33). In bivariate analyses, acculturative stress was associated with higher levels of anxiety and depressive symptoms. ⋯ In addition, peer support moderated the relation between acculturative stress and anxiety symptoms. Implications for reducing the effects of acculturative stress among Mexican American college students are discussed.
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Cultur Divers Ethnic Minor Psychol · Jul 2006
Comparative StudyCognitions and depressive symptoms among ethnic minority adolescents.
Cognitive models have guided effective intervention strategies in the treatment of depression. However, little is known about the cognitive model's relevance in different cultural ethnic groups in the United States. This study examines the cross-sectional and longitudinal associations among cognitive variables and depressive symptoms among African American, Caucasian, and Hispanic adolescents in the United States. ⋯ Ethnic differences disappeared when parent education level was controlled. Our findings demonstrate support for the cognitive model of depression across ethnic groups. The importance of controlling for social class when examining ethnic differences in psychological variables is highlighted by our findings.
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Cultur Divers Ethnic Minor Psychol · Feb 2004
Patterns of pain descriptor usage in African Americans and European Americans with chronic pain.
This study examined ethnic differences in the use of pain descriptors, comparing standardized pain assessment data from African American and European American patients with heterogeneous chronic pain syndromes. The measure was the Short-Form McGill Pain Questionnaire (SF-MPQ) including the embedded Visual Analog Scale (VAS). ⋯ There was little overlap in the pattern matrices for African American and European American groups. Results suggest that the VAS is as sensitive to ethnic differences as other traditional pain measures.