Cultural influences on willingness to seek treatment for social anxiety in Chinese- and European-heritage students.

The associations between insecure attachment, negative parental behaviors, and social anxiety in childhood and adolescence have long been established theoretically and documented by empirical research. Still, it is clear that those associations operate through various moderators that should be addressed, among which are societal, economical, and cultural variables whose effect can be neither ignored nor overlooked. The vicissitudes of individual psychological development are shaped by environments, both physical and symbolic, in which those individuals are embedded: indeed, the cross-cultural studies that compared between Western and non-Western samples consistently reveal interrelatedness between secure/insecure attachments, parenting practices, and socioeconomic and cultural influences. In the light of the above, the present article addresses the interplay between insecure attachment, parental behaviors, and social anxiety in children as a multi-layered constellation of risk-factors which are informed by the broad network of socioeconomic and cultural dimensions. The integrative review of extensive body of literature demonstrates that this constellation cannot be complete without elucidating the role of fathers in parenting that may contribute to developing social anxiety, as well as without taking into consideration characteristics of cultures and society which shape and inform both parental practices and their perceptions.

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Ethnic differences in social anxiety between individuals of Asian heritage and European heritage: A meta-analytic review.

Asian American Journal of Psychology ◽

10.1037/a0036993 ◽

2015 ◽

Vol 6 (1) ◽

pp. 66-80 ◽

Cited By ~ 12

Author(s):

Alexander Krieg ◽

Yiyuan Xu

Keyword(s):

Social Anxiety ◽

Ethnic Differences ◽

Analytic Review ◽

European Heritage

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Treatment of Social Anxiety Disorder or Neuroenhancement of Socially Accepted Modesty? The Case of Ms. Suzuki

International Perspectives in Values-Based Mental Health Practice ◽

10.1007/978-3-030-47852-0_26 ◽

2020 ◽

pp. 229-235

Author(s):

Eisuke Sakakibara

Keyword(s):

Anxiety Disorder ◽

Social Anxiety ◽

Social Anxiety Disorder ◽

Psychiatric Diagnosis ◽

Cultural Influences ◽

Japanese Woman ◽

Value Judgments ◽

Coercive Treatment ◽

Ethical Guidance ◽

Management Position

AbstractThis chapter presents the case of Ms. Suzuki, a modest Japanese woman who had worked as a clerk for more than 20 years. After she was promoted at age 43, she found herself unable to adapt properly to her management position because it required assertiveness and leadership. She saw a psychiatrist following her supervisor’s advice. She had some of the symptoms of social anxiety disorder (SAD), but it was uncertain whether she met the diagnostic criteria. To elucidate the considerations involved before initiating or refraining from pharmacotherapy, I refer to the ethical debates on neuroenhancement. First, medication would spoil her authenticity, because her modesty is part of her virtue. Second, medicating a person seeing a psychiatrist at her boss’s instigation might constitute a milder form of coercive treatment. Third, diagnosing Ms. Suzuki with SAD seems to endorse her company’s culture, whereas denying her disorder status would affirm Japanese culture’s oppressiveness toward women. When a case lies on the border between normality and pathology, relying on the psychiatric diagnosis for ethical guidance disguises value judgments for matters of fact. Therefore, we should explicitly state the conflicting values and the cultural influences on them to make better clinical decisions.

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PROBLEMATIC INTERNET USE AMONG ADOLESCENTS AND THE VIEW OF CONTEXT: A PLS-STRUCTURAL EQUATION MODEL

Psychological Applications and Trends 2021 ◽

10.36315/2021inpact020 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Lucrezia Ferrante ◽

◽

Claudia Venuleo ◽

Simone Rollo

Keyword(s):

Social Anxiety ◽

Structural Equation ◽

Internet Use ◽

Multiple Correspondence Analysis ◽

Negative Emotions ◽

Cultural Influences ◽

Equation Model ◽

Problematic Internet Use ◽

Mediation Model ◽

Adaptive Responses

"The idea of Internet use as a way to face psychosocial malaise is growing in the scientific literature about Problematic Internet Use (PIU). The present study, assuming the Semiotic Cultural Psycho-social Theory (SCPT) (Salvatore, 2018) as theoretical framework, postulates and emphasizes that the context in which the subject is embedded provide the symbolic resources, which ground the way adolescents perceive, experience, and therefore deal with the material and social world, including the likelihood of using the Internet as a way to facing life problems and difficulties. SCTP adopts the term “Symbolic Universes” (SU) to denote affect-laden assumptions concerning the world which may (or not) promote adaptive responses. Specifically, the present study aimed to test a mediation model in which each Symbolic Universes (i.e. independent variable) is associated with the psychosocial malaise in terms of social anxiety, loneliness, and negative emotions (i.e. mediator variable), which in turn has effects on PIU (i.e. dependent variable). Measures of PIU (GPIUS), symbolic universes (VOC), negative affect (PANAS), social anxiety (IAS), loneliness (ILs) among a total of 764 Southern Italy youths aged from 13 to 19 (mean age =15.05 ± 1.152). A Multiple Correspondence Analysis (MCA) was firstly run to detect SU; a Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modelling (PLS-SEM) was then performed on R for testing the hypothesized mediation model. The results demonstrated that Symbolic Universes characterized by anomie and unreliability of the social context are associated with adolescents’ PIU though the mediation of social anxiety, loneliness, and negative emotions. Overall, findings suggest that within an anomic and unreliable scenario, PIU might acquire the meaning of a way to face life in an environment that seems meaningless, uncertain, and detrimental. On the plane of intervention, this points to the need for programs that address social and cultural influences in youths’ Internet use."

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