Title: Individualist or Collectivist? How Culture Influences Behavior | HealthyPsych.com
Headings: 
Individualist or Collectivist? How Culture Influences Behavior
Culture
Elizabeth Hopper, PhD
January 30, 2015
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Content: European Americans had lower cortisol levels if they wrote a letter asking for support, while Asian Americans had lower cortisol levels if they wrote about a group they were close to. In other words, what this study shows is that cultural background can influence the type of social support that we benefit from when we’re facing a stressful event. What can cultural psychology tell us about psychology research? Most social psychologists have conducted their studies on participants from Western countries. However, Western research participants aren’t representative of the world as a whole: many psychology findings don’t look the same when we do include participants from other cultures. So when reading about psychology research, it’s important to consider the cultural background of the research participants—and if the research used primarily Western participants, to think about how collectivistic research participants might have responded differently. How does this affect you? Cultural psychology has a number of take-home lessons. For example, therapists should be aware that cultural background can impact how comfortable someone feels opening up to others about personal problems.