Clinical psychology originally developed in the Western World, primarily in Europe and North America. As a result, it is often not clear whether psychotherapies known to help clients in Western cultures will also be effective with individuals in other cultures. The following series of experiments was designed to determine whether attitudes towards psychotherapy in Chinese culture may make individuals less likely to seek out help when they need it.
I particularly like this study for two reasons. First, the researchers took an empirical approach with four controlled experiments, with each subsequent experiment designed to answer questions raised by the previous experiment. Second, rather than ask study participants about their attitudes, the researchers assessed attitudes indirectly from their behavioral intentions: would participants recommend psychotherapy for an individual described in a series of scenarios.
This study was also particularly clever in how it used language (English or Chinese) to prime cultural attitudes among the participants. Conducted by Heller, Grant, Yasui, and Keysar, these four experiments were reported in a special issue of Clinical Psychological Science focused on cultural issues in clinical psychology.
Article Abstract
Culture plays a key role in the long-standing underutilization of professional mental-health services among immigrants and ethnic minorities, especially among Asian communities. Furthermore, language nativeness can modulate the salience of cultural norms. Through a series of four experimental studies (N = 1,120), we evaluated whether bilingual speakers’ attitudes toward mental-health treatment are affected by whether they are using their native Chinese or foreign English. Overall, participants more strongly endorsed mental-health treatment when information was presented in English. The same outcome was found for participants residing in the United States and mainland China. Consistent with a language-priming-culture hypothesis, participants using Chinese endorsed mental-health treatment less when their affiliation with traditional Asian values was higher, whereas in English their recommendations remained independent of affiliation with traditional Asian values. In sum, these studies reveal the significance of language in culturally anchored mental-health attitudes.
Citation
Heller, U. C., Grant, L. H., Yasui, M., & Keysar, B. (2024). Culturally Anchored Mental-Health Attitudes: The Impact of Language. Clinical Psychological Science, 12(2), 290-304.
Dr Martin Fracker 