Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin

 

Advanced Search

Journal Navigation

Journal Home

Subscriptions

Archive

Contact Us

Table of Contents

Click here for more information

Sign In to gain access to subscriptions and/or personal tools.
This Article
Right arrow Abstract Freely available
Right arrow Free Full Text (Free PDF) Free
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Alert me if a correction is posted
Right arrow Citation Map
Services
Right arrow Email this article to a friend
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Similar articles in ISI Web of Science
Right arrow Similar articles in PubMed
Right arrow Alert me to new issues of the journal
Right arrow Add to Saved Citations
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Right arrowRequest Permissions
Right arrow Request Reprints
Right arrow Add to My Marked Citations
Citing Articles
Right arrow Citing Articles via HighWire
Right arrow Citing Articles via ISI Web of Science (2)
Right arrow Citing Articles via Google Scholar
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by Kim, H. S.
Right arrow Articles by Taylor, S. E.
Right arrow Search for Related Content
PubMed
Right arrow PubMed Citation
Right arrow Articles by Kim, H. S.
Right arrow Articles by Taylor, S. E.
Social Bookmarking
Add to CiteULike   Add to Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us   Add to Digg   Add to Reddit   Add to Technorati  
What's this?
Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, Vol. 32, No. 12, 1595-1607 (2006)
DOI: 10.1177/0146167206291991
© 2006 Society for Personality and Social Psychology, Inc.

Pursuit of Comfort and Pursuit of Harmony: Culture, Relationships, and Social Support Seeking

Heejung S. Kim

David K. Sherman

Deborah Ko

University of California, Santa Barbara

Shelley E. Taylor

University of California, Los Angeles

This research examined whether people from collectivistic cultures are less likely to seek social support than are people from individualistic cultures because they are more cautious about potentially disturbing their social network. Study 1 found that Asian Americans from a more collectivistic culture sought social support less and found support seeking to be less effective than European Americans from a more individualistic culture. Study 2 found that European Americans' willingness to seek support was unaffected by relationship priming, whereas Asian Americans were willing to seek support less when the relationship primed was closer to the self. Study 3 replicated the results of Study 2 and found that the tendency to seek support and expect social support to be helpful as related to concerns about relationships. These findings underscore the importance of culturally divergent relationship patterns in understanding social support transactions.

Key Words: culture • social support • relationship • stress

References

  • Adams, G., & Plaut, V. C. (2003). The cultural grounding of personal relationship: Friendship in North American and West African worlds? Personal Relationships, 10, 333-347.[CrossRef]
  • Aiken, L. S., & West, S. G. (1991). Multiple regression: Testing and interpreting interactions. Newbury Park, CA: Sage.
  • Baron, R. M., & Kenny, D. A. (1986). The moderator-mediator variable distinction in social psychological research: Conceptual, strategic, and statistical considerations. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 51, 1173-1182.[CrossRef][ISI][Medline] [Order article via Infotrieve]
  • Bolger, N., Zuckerman, A., & Kessler, R. C. (2000). Invisible support and adjustment to stress. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 79, 953-961.[CrossRef][ISI][Medline] [Order article via Infotrieve]
  • Carver, C. S. (1997). You want to measure coping but your protocol's too long: Consider the Brief COPE. International Journal of Behavioral Medicine, 4, 92-100.[CrossRef][ISI][Medline] [Order article via Infotrieve]
  • Carver, C. S., Scheier, M. F., & Weintraub, J. K. (1989). Assessing coping strategies: A theoretically based approach. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 56, 267-283.[CrossRef][ISI][Medline] [Order article via Infotrieve]
  • Cobb, S. (1976). Social support as a mediator of life stress. Psychosomatic Medicine, (38), 300-314.
  • Cohen, S. (1988). Psychosocial models of the role of social support in the etiology of physical diseases. Health Psychology, 7, 269-297.[CrossRef][ISI][Medline] [Order article via Infotrieve]
  • Cohen, S., Sherrod, D. R., & Clark, M. S. (1986). Social skills and the stress-protective role of social support. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 50, 963-973.[CrossRef][ISI][Medline] [Order article via Infotrieve]
  • Cohen, S., & Wills, T. A. (1985). Stress, social support, and the buffering hypothesis. Psychological Bulletin, 98, 310-357.[CrossRef][ISI][Medline] [Order article via Infotrieve]
  • Collins, N. L., Dunkel-Schetter, C., Lobel, M., & Scrimshaw, S. C. M. (1993). Social support in pregnancy: Psychosocial correlates of birth outcomes and postpartum depression. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 65, 1243-1258.[CrossRef][ISI][Medline] [Order article via Infotrieve]
  • Collins, N. L., & Feeney, B. C. (2000). A safe haven: An attachment theory perspective on support seeking and caregiving in intimate relationships. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 78, 1053-1073.[CrossRef][ISI][Medline] [Order article via Infotrieve]
  • Cutrona, C. E., Cohen, B. B., & Ingram, S. (1990). Contextual determinants of the perceived supportiveness of helping behaviors. Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, 7, 553-562.[Abstract]
  • Dunkel-Schetter, C., Folkman, S., & Lazarus, R. S. (1987). Correlates of social support receipt. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 53, 71-80.[CrossRef][ISI][Medline] [Order article via Infotrieve]
  • Dunkel-Schetter, C., Sagrestano, L., Feldman, P., & Killingsworth, C. (1996). Social support and pregnancy: A comprehensive review focusing on ethnicity and culture. In G. Pierce, B. Sarason, & I. Sarason (Eds.), Handbook of social support and the family(pp. 375-412). New York: Plenum.
  • Feeney, B. C., & Collins, N. L. (2001) Predictors of caregiving in adult intimate relationships: An attachment theoretical perspective. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 80, 972-994.[CrossRef][ISI][Medline] [Order article via Infotrieve]
  • Fiske, A. P., Kitayama, S., Markus, H. R., & Nisbett, R. E. (1998). The cultural matrix of social psychology. In D. Gilbert, S. Fiske, & G. Lindzey (Eds.), Handbook of social psychology (pp. 915-981). New York: McGraw-Hill.
  • Hobfoll, S. E., Nadler, A., & Leiberman, J. (1986). Satisfaction with social support during crisis: Intimacy and self-esteem as critical determinants. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 51, 296-304.[CrossRef][ISI][Medline] [Order article via Infotrieve]
  • Hofstede, G. (2001). Culture's consequences. Comparing values, behaviors, institutions, and organizations across nations. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
  • Holtgraves, T. (1997). Styles of language use: Individual and cultural variability in conversational indirectness. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 73, 624-637.[CrossRef]
  • Iyengar, S. S., Lepper, M. R., & Ross, L. (1999). Independence from whom? Interdependence with whom? Cultural perspectives on ingroups versus outgroups. In D. Prentice & D. Miller (Eds.), Cultural divides: Understanding and overcoming group conflict(pp. 273-301). New York: Russell Sage.
  • Kim, H., & Markus, H. R. (1999). Deviance or uniqueness, harmony or conformity? A cultural analysis. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 77, 785-800.[CrossRef][ISI]
  • Kim, H. S., & Ko, D. (in press). Culture and self-expression. In C. Sedikides & S. Spencer (Eds.), Frontiers of social psychology: The self. New York: Psychology Press.
  • Kim, H. S., & Sherman, D. K. (in press). "Express yourself": Culture and the effect of self-expression on choice. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.
  • Kitayama, S., & Uchida, Y. (2005). Interdependent agency: An alternative system for action. In R. Sorrentino, D. Cohen, J. Olson, & M. Zanna (Eds.), Cultural and social behavior: The Ontario symposium(Vol. 10, pp. 137-164). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
  • Lepore, S. J. (1998). Problems and prospects for the social supportreactivity hypothesis. Annals of Behavioral Medicine, 20, 257-269.[ISI][Medline] [Order article via Infotrieve]
  • Lindsley, S. L., & Braithwaite, C. A. (1996). "You should ‘wear a mask’": Facework norms in cultural and intercultural conflict in maquiladoras. International Journal of Intercultural Relations. 20, 199-225.[CrossRef]
  • Markus, H. R., & Kitayama, S. (1991). Culture and the self: Implications for cognition, emotion, and motivation. Psychological Review, 98, 224-253.[CrossRef][ISI]
  • Markus, H. R., Mullally, P., & Kitayama, S. (1997). Selfways: Diversity in modes of cultural participation. In U. Neisser & D. A. Jopling (Eds.), The conceptual self in context: Culture, experience, self-understanding (pp. 13-61). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
  • Marteau, T. M., Bloch, S., & Baum, J. D. (1987). Family life and diabetic control. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 28, 823-833.[ISI][Medline] [Order article via Infotrieve]
  • Miller, J. G., Bersoff, D. M., & Harwood, R. L. (1990). Perceptions of social responsibilities in India and the United States: Moral imperatives or personal decisions? Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 58, 33-47.[CrossRef][ISI][Medline] [Order article via Infotrieve]
  • Mills, J., & Clark, M. S. (1984). Exchange and communal relationships. In L. Wheeler (Ed.), Review of personality and social psychology(Vol. 3, pp. 121-144). Newbury Park, CA: Sage.
  • Morling, B., Kitayama, S., & Miyamoto, Y. (2003). American and Japanese women use different coping strategies during normal pregnancy. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 29, 1533-1546.[Abstract]
  • Morris, M. W., & Peng, K. (1994). Culture and cause: American and Chinese attributions for social and physical events. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 67, 949-971.[CrossRef][ISI]
  • Sanchez-Burks, J. (2002). Protestant relational ideology and (in)attention to relational cues in work settings. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 83, 919-929.[CrossRef][ISI][Medline] [Order article via Infotrieve]
  • Seeman, T. E. (1996). Social ties and health: The benefits of social integration. Annals of Epidemiology, 6, 442-451.[CrossRef][ISI][Medline] [Order article via Infotrieve]
  • Seidman, G., Shrout, P. E., & Bolger, N. (2006). Why is enacted social support associated with increased distress? Using simulation to test two possible sources of spuriousness. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 32, 52-65.[Abstract/Free Full Text]
  • Taylor, S. E. (in press). Social support. In H. S. Friedman & R. C. Silver (Eds.), Oxford handbook of health psychology. New York: Oxford University Press.
  • Taylor, S. E., Sherman, D. K., Kim, H. S., Jarcho, J., Takagi, K., & Dunagan, M. S. (2004). Culture and social support: Who seeks it and why? Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 87, 354-362.[CrossRef][ISI][Medline] [Order article via Infotrieve]
  • Thoits, P. A. (1995). Stress, coping and social support processes: Where are we? What next? Journal of Health and Social Behavior, pp. 53-79.
  • Uchida, Y., & Kitayama, S. (2001). Development and validation of a sympathy scale. Japanese Journal of Psychology, 72, 275-282.
  • VanderPlate, C., Aral, S. O., & Magder, L. (1988). The relationship among genital herpes simplex virus, stress, and social support. Health Psychology, 7, 159-168.[CrossRef][ISI][Medline] [Order article via Infotrieve]
  • Weiss, R. S. (1974). The provisions of social relationships. In Z. Rubin (Ed.), Doing unto others (pp. 17-26). Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.
  • Wethington, E., & Kessler, R. C. (1986). Perceived support, received support, and adjustment to stressful life events. Journal of Health and Social Behavior, 27, 78-89.[CrossRef][ISI][Medline] [Order article via Infotrieve]
  • Wills, T. A. (1991). Social support and interpersonal relationships. In M. S. Clark (Ed.), Prosocial behavior (pp. 265-289). Newbury Park, CA: Sage.

Add to CiteULike CiteULike   Add to Connotea Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us Del.icio.us   Add to Digg Digg   Add to Reddit Reddit   Add to Technorati Technorati    What's this?


This article has been cited by other articles:


Home page
 Pers Soc Psychol BullHome page
Y. Uchida, S. Kitayama, B. Mesquita, J. A. S. Reyes, and B. Morling
Is Perceived Emotional Support Beneficial? Well-Being and Health in Independent and Interdependent Cultures
Pers Soc Psychol Bull, June 1, 2008; 34(6): 741 - 754.
[Abstract] [PDF]

Home page
 Pers Soc Psychol BullHome page
H. S. Kim and D. K. Sherman
What Do We See in a Tilted Square? A Validation of the Figure Independence Scale
Pers Soc Psychol Bull, January 1, 2008; 34(1): 47 - 60.
[Abstract] [PDF]

This Article
Right arrow Abstract Freely available
Right arrow Free Full Text (Free PDF) Free
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Alert me if a correction is posted
Right arrow Citation Map
Services
Right arrow Email this article to a friend
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Similar articles in ISI Web of Science
Right arrow Similar articles in PubMed
Right arrow Alert me to new issues of the journal
Right arrow Add to Saved Citations
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Right arrowRequest Permissions
Right arrow Request Reprints
Right arrow Add to My Marked Citations
Citing Articles
Right arrow Citing Articles via HighWire
Right arrow Citing Articles via ISI Web of Science (2)
Right arrow Citing Articles via Google Scholar
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by Kim, H. S.
Right arrow Articles by Taylor, S. E.
Right arrow Search for Related Content
PubMed
Right arrow PubMed Citation
Right arrow Articles by Kim, H. S.
Right arrow Articles by Taylor, S. E.
Social Bookmarking
Add to CiteULike   Add to Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us   Add to Digg   Add to Reddit   Add to Technorati  
What's this?