Cultural influences on expression and coping: A study of Asian American men.

Abstract

The majority of past research has found coping strategies involving emotion non-expression to have negative cognitive, emotional, and behavioral consequences. In recent years, psychologists have started to question the predominant notion that coping involving non-expression is invariably associated with negative health outcomes. Several moderating factors have been found to affect the relationship between non-expression and health, but very little research has examined cultural context as a moderator, or how the relationship between coping strategies and health may differ among ethnic groups. Asian American men are a group that may receive strong cultural cues to adopt non-expression as a coping style, and may experience non-expression as adaptive. Accordingly, Asian men were studied as the focal group of interest. Main goals were to investigate the influence of culture on the relationship between non-expression/coping and health. Results indicated that the link between expression and non-expression-related coping strategies with psychological health varies according to culture, and is not universal. Consistent with hypotheses, coping strategies involving emotion non-expression (e.g., non-expressivity) were more strongly related to positive psychological health for Asian American men compared to White men, White women, and Asian women. Coping strategies involving emotion expression (i.e. rumination), on the other hand, were related to more negative psychological health for the Asian men. Contrary to expectations, avoidant coping, which involves denial of feelings and problem avoidance, was related to more negative health. Secondary goals of this project were to explore possible reasons, mediating variables, why Asian men experienced different health correlates when utilizing non-expressivity, avoidance, and rumination as coping strategies. Social friction, support-seeking behavior, and comfort with expression mediated and helped to explain the relationship of non-expressivity with more positive health for Asian males compared to Asian females, White males, and White females. Increased social friction mediated the relationship of avoidance or rumination with health in Asian males, though it did not explain group differences. Results from this project have important implications for the emotion, coping, and culture literatures. This study also illuminates the need to further study the mental health needs of Asian American men, to develop culturally-responsive service outreach recommendations.