Cultural norms and subjective disability as predictors of symptom reports among Asian Americans and White Americans

Past studies have found that Asian Americans and White Americans differ not only on global levels of well-being but also on the bases for judgments of well-being. The authors examined whether cultural norms about specific mental health problems predict self-reports of those symptoms above and beyond the subjective assessment of their own functioning. Asian Americans (n = 200) and White Americans (n = 200) rated how normative they viewed depression and social anxiety syndromes and completed self-report measures of depression, social anxiety, and disability. The results revealed that perceived cultural norms about depression were related to depressive symptom reports among Asian Americans but not among White Americans. Cultural norms about social anxiety were not differentially associated with reports of social anxiety in the two ethnic groups.