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Influence of Cultural Contexts on Daily Stress Experiences: Perception of Interpersonal vs. Non-Interpersonal Situations among European Canadian and Japanese Undergraduate Students
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- Author / Creator
- Lee, Hajin
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Daily stress experiences are significantly shaped by how people appraise and react to situations. While cultural psychologists suggest that people from different cultures interpret and react to situations differently based on their self-construal (how the self is defined in terms of an individual’s self-other relations), few studies have tested how people’s self-construal is manifested in daily stress processes. Using a situation sampling method, we examined cultural differences in how European-Canadians and Japanese appraise both interpersonal events, which involve interactions with others, and non-interpersonal events, which do not involve interactions with others (Study 1A). Additionally, we analyzed the descriptions of daily stress events using a text analysis approach (Study 1B). These lead to different levels of self-reported mental and physical distress (Studies 2 and 3). Further, we assessed whether self-construals mediate the association between culture and interpersonal distress (Study 3). The results of these three studies showed that European-Canadians, who perceive themselves as distinct from relationships, rated non-interpersonal events as more stressful and prevalent than interpersonal events, whereas Japanese, who perceive themselves embedded in relationships, rated interpersonal events as equally stressful and prevalent as non-interpersonal events. Further, we found that European-Canadians expressed mental aspects of distress more frequently in their descriptions, whereas Japanese expressed physical and social aspects of distress. This cultural difference in situational appraisal was further manifested in self-reported mental and physical distress. Importantly, stronger interdependent (relative to independent) self-construals explain why people from different cultures experience different levels of interpersonal distress. These results are discussed in terms of how culture shapes daily stress processes.
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- Subjects / Keywords
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- Graduation date
- Spring 2019
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- Type of Item
- Thesis
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- Degree
- Doctor of Philosophy
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- License
- Permission is hereby granted to the University of Alberta Libraries to reproduce single copies of this thesis and to lend or sell such copies for private, scholarly or scientific research purposes only. Where the thesis is converted to, or otherwise made available in digital form, the University of Alberta will advise potential users of the thesis of these terms. The author reserves all other publication and other rights in association with the copyright in the thesis and, except as herein before provided, neither the thesis nor any substantial portion thereof may be printed or otherwise reproduced in any material form whatsoever without the author's prior written permission.