Severe Social Withdrawal: Cultural Variation in Past Hikikomori Experiences of University Students in Nigeria, Singapore, and the United States

Bowker, Julie C.; Bowker, Matthew H.; Santo, Jonathan Bruce; Ojo, Adesola Adebusola; Etkin, Rebecca G.; Raja, Radhi

doi:10.1080/00221325.2019.1633618

Cited by 40 publications

(41 citation statements)

References 34 publications

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“…That means that even non-Chinese Singaporeans of Malay, Indian, or any other ethnicity may share these originally Confucianist values. Evidently, Singaporean university students reported higher levels of depressive symptoms and anxiety relative to Nigerian and American university students (Bowker et al, 2019), which could be an outcome of this pressure to perform to societal expectations. Given the current weakening job market and economic slowdown, we suggest that some individuals who inevitably fail in culturally-imposed expectations of success (academic grades/finding a good job) may develop withdrawal tendencies, in a manner consistent with the cultural marginalisation theory (see Norasakkunkit et al, 2012).…”

Section: Neet/hikikomori Risk In the Singaporean Contextmentioning

confidence: 96%

“…While anecdotal accounts of hikikomori behaviour exist in Singapore, prior research on this kind of social withdrawal is rare (Chua & Chua, 2017). Nevertheless, there has been a growing interest in social withdrawal in both local news media outlets (Yuen, 2019;Mokhtar, 2019), online forums (e.g., Reddit: Zanina_wolf, 2018), and academic research (Bowker et al, 2019;Wong et al, 2019). Bowker and colleagues (2019) found that past occurrences of hikikomori behaviour (withdrawal of six months or more) were significantly higher in Singaporean university students than American university students.…”

Section: Neet/hikikomori Risk In the Singaporean Contextmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Examining the Cultural Marginalisation Theory of Neet/Hikikomori Risk Tendencies in Singaporean Youth

Liew

Uchida²,

Cruz

et al. 2021

PSYCHOLOGIA -An International Journal of Psychological Sciences

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It has been suggested that social withdrawal (NEET/Hikikomori behaviour) occurs as a result of an individual's difficulty to adapt to social norms and pressures within given cultures (marginalisation), and is present in collectivistic cultures with high social pressures and expectations. Since most of the NEET/Hikikomori studies have been conducted in Japan, we examine its applicability in Singapore with the NEET/Hikikomori Risk scale. We collected data from university students, and were able to confirm its convergent validity. To better understand its social and psychological context, we conducted an exploratory analysis to find associations with perceived deficits in social relationships, self-esteem and competence, as well as personality, anxiety, depression, and cultural self-construal. Consistent with previous findings in Japan, the evidence supports the risks of NEET/Hikikomori tendencies in Singapore as concurrent with cultural marginalisation, perceived social rejection and low views of self.

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Section: Neet/hikikomori Risk In the Singaporean Contextmentioning

confidence: 96%

Section: Neet/hikikomori Risk In the Singaporean Contextmentioning

confidence: 99%

Examining the Cultural Marginalisation Theory of Neet/Hikikomori Risk Tendencies in Singaporean Youth

Liew

Uchida²,

Cruz

et al. 2021

PSYCHOLOGIA -An International Journal of Psychological Sciences

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…As a result of the current pandemic there may also be an increase in hikikomori, a syndrome that superficially resembles agoraphobia in which people become recluses, reluctant to leave their living quarters. Hikikomori, defined as severe social withdrawal lasting 6 months or longer (Teo, 2010), was once regarded as a syndrome limited to Japan but has become increasingly recognized in other countries (Bowker, Bowker et al, 2019). COVID-19 is likely to increase the prevalence of hikikomori, as health-anxious people retreat from a coronavirus contaminated outside world into the safety of their apartments or homes.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Life in a post-pandemic world: What to expect of anxiety-related conditions and their treatment

Taylor

Asmundson

2020

Journal of Anxiety Disorders

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Elsevier has created a COVID-19 resource centre with free information in English and Mandarin on the novel coronavirus COVID-19. The COVID-19 resource centre is hosted on Elsevier Connect, the company's public news and information website. Elsevier hereby grants permission to make all its COVID-19-related research that is available on the COVID-19 resource centre-including this research content-immediately available in PubMed Central and other publicly funded repositories, such as the WHO COVID database with rights for unrestricted research re-use and analyses in any form or by any means with acknowledgement of the original source. These permissions are granted for free by Elsevier for as long as the COVID-19 resource centre remains active.

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“…Thus university students can be studied as representatives of this particular life stage from each country. Also, despite this population being less prone to cultural marginalization, they are not immune to it; there are many reported cases of university students falling into social marginalization in several countries (e.g., Uchida, 2010 ; Bowker et al, 2019 ).…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Who Can Buffer Marginalization Risk? Affect Experience, Affect Valuation, and Social Marginalization in Japan and Brazil

Almeida

Uchida

2021

Front. Psychol.

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Previous research has associated social marginalization with the rejection of mainstream cultural values. Since cultural values reflect affect valuation, the present research investigates the relationships between social marginalization and ideal/actual affect in two different non-WEIRD cultures, Brazil and Japan. As a social marginalization index, we used the NEET-Hikikomori Risk Scale (NHR). We predicted that cultural differences would emerge in the valuation of affective states. Affect valuation theory suggests that in East Asia, individuals are encouraged to pursue and value low arousal positive emotions (LAP: e.g., calmness, serenity) over high arousal positive emotions (HAP: e.g., excitement, elation, etc.) as they can harm social relationships in these societies. In contrast, Latin American cultures value HAP over LAP, because social relationships are promoted through vibrant positive emotional expression in these cultures. Hence, we hypothesized that individuals’ ideal affect, actual affect, and the discrepancy between ideal and actual affect would be associated with higher risk of social marginalization. Participants from Japan (N = 54) and Brazil (N = 54) reported their ideal affect and actual affect and completed the NEET-Hikikomori Risk Scale (NHR). Regression analyses showed that actual HAP and the discrepancy between ideal and actual HAP were negatively associated with NHR in Brazil, but no association was found in the Japanese data. The other variables, including ideal affect, were only minorly or not significantly associated with NHR. Though the study has limitations regarding its small sample size, we can explore future perspectives and discuss the relationships between emotion and cultural marginalization. Socioecological factors that promote actual HAP in Brazilians may encourage other mainstream cultural ideals, which buffers against cultural marginalization.

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Severe Social Withdrawal: Cultural Variation in Past Hikikomori Experiences of University Students in Nigeria, Singapore, and the United States

Cited by 40 publications

References 34 publications

Examining the Cultural Marginalisation Theory of Neet/Hikikomori Risk Tendencies in Singaporean Youth

Examining the Cultural Marginalisation Theory of Neet/Hikikomori Risk Tendencies in Singaporean Youth

Life in a post-pandemic world: What to expect of anxiety-related conditions and their treatment

Who Can Buffer Marginalization Risk? Affect Experience, Affect Valuation, and Social Marginalization in Japan and Brazil

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