Cultural differences in social anxiety: A meta-analysis of Asian and European heritage samples.

Abstract

Most studies examining cultural differences in social anxiety have found that East Asian participants report higher social anxiety than do Western Europeans, but the differences have not always been statistically significant. Effect sizes have ranged widely, and methodological differences among studies make comparisons difficult. To obtain an estimate of the overall magnitude of cultural group differences in self-reported social anxiety, we conducted a meta-analysis of previous studies comparing individuals of Asian and European heritage. We also tested whether available culturally relevant variables would explain (moderate) some of the between-study differences in cultural differences in social anxiety. The analysis included 31 studies involving 57 individual comparisons between Asian and European samples on measures of social anxiety, resulting in a weighted mean effect size of d = 0.47, 95% confidence interval [0.39, 0.54]. Effect sizes were somewhat higher in studies involving Asian-heritage participants living in Asian countries (d = 0.52) than in Western countries (d = 0.39), although the confidence intervals did overlap slightly (p = .06). Future research on the mechanisms of this difference should include more nuanced measures of acculturation as well as an exploration of anxiety-evoking contexts for these cultural groups.

A Contextual Behavioral Account of Culture: Example Implementation of a Functional Behavioral Approach to the Study of Cultural Differences in Social Anxiety

“…When all of the variance from situations were collapsed into a single global category, a small-to-moderate culture group difference in social anxiety endorsements emerged, with Japanese participants scoring higher than European American participants. This particular effect size corresponds with the findings from prior meta-analyses (Krieg and Xu, 2015;Woody et al, 2015). As identified and disseminated in the original Krieg (2018) manuscript, both Japanese and European Americans generated approximately the same number of socially anxiety provoking situations in the first part of the situation sampling analysis.…”

“…Over the past 30 years, the extant research has shown that individuals of East Asian cultural heritage relative to European Americans or European Canadians report higher social anxiety symptoms with remarkable consistency (for meta-analyses see Krieg and Xu, 2015;Woody et al, 2015), with a moderate average effect size of Cohen's d = 0.36 (95%, CI:0.27, 0.44; Krieg and Xu, 2015). Furthermore, follow-up study by showed that this cultural difference in social anxiety was not an artifact of non-equivalent measurement properties between the two groups by testing for measurement invariance across common social anxiety measures.…”

Comparing Social Anxiety Between Asian Americans and European Americans: An Examination of Measurement Invariance

“…The results of two recent meta-analyses (Krieg & Xu, 2015; Woody, Miao, & Kellman-McFarlane, 2015) showed that compared with European Americans, Asian Americans tended to report higher levels of social anxiety on standardized questionnaires. However, meta-analytic techniques assume equivalent measurement properties among groups (i.e., measurement invariance ; Little, 1997) to calculate unbiased estimates, an assumption that had been rarely tested in prior studies that compared social anxiety between Asian Americans and European Americans.…”

The Correlation of Self-Construal, Self-Efficacy, and Emotional Regulation Strategy as Cultural Factors with Social Anxiety: Preliminary Study

“…From various studies, it is found that social anxiety in collectivist societies is almost always higher than in individualist societies (Essau, Leung, Conradt, Cheng, & Wong, 2008;Heinrichs et al, 2006, Hong & Woody, 2007Hsu et al, 2012;Lee, Okazaki, & Yoo;Pina, Little, Wynne, & Beidel, 2014;Vriends et al, 2013;Woody, Miou, Kellman, & Kellman-McFarlane, 2015). Some experts argue that discussing social anxiety is ultimately inseparable from social and cultural context (Hofmann, Asnaani, & Hinton, 2010;Vriends et al, 2013;Woody et al, 2015;Zhu et al, 2014).…”