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. 2021 Sep 9;16(9):e0256859.
doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0256859. eCollection 2021.

Cultural differences in stress and affection following social support receipt

Vida Pourmand  1 , Kendall A Lawley  1 , Barbara J Lehman  1
Affiliations

Cultural differences in stress and affection following social support receipt

Vida Pourmand et al. PLoS One. .

Abstract

Culturally appropriate social support predicts better psychological outcomes. Motivation for providing social support may vary cross-culturally, with more independent cultures valuing self-esteem and more interdependent cultures valuing closeness. Participants in the U.S. (N = 85) and Singapore (N = 78) reported on emotions and social support receipt using the Day Reconstruction Method. We examined cultural differences in stress and affection, and tested country as a moderator of the associations between both social support receipt and social support motivation, and next-episode emotions. Multilevel modeling analyses showed that not only did the emotional correlates of social support receipt vary by country, but that recipient perceptions of esteem-building and closeness-fostering SS also differentially correlated with subsequent emotion. For example, esteem-building SS predicted greater next-episode stress for Singaporean participants, but less stress in the U.S. Esteem-building SS predicted more next-episode affection only in the U.S. Culturally appropriate social support predicts positive psychological outcomes. This research highlights the importance of considering culture when examining the dynamic emotional correlates of social support receipt.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Figures

Fig 1
Fig 1. Interaction of culture and social support receipt on next episode stress.
Fig 2
Fig 2. Interaction of culture and esteem building on next episode affection.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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Grants and funding

The authors received no specific funding for this work.