MENTAL HEALTH
Test data may overstate social stress among Asian Americans

Jim Barlow, Life Sciences Editor
(217) 333-5802; b-james3@uiuc.edu

9/1/2001

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — Are Asian Americans troubled by social anxieties and in need of therapy more than their white counterparts? University of Illinois researchers believe that such a conclusion may seem clear based on standard assessment techniques, but that view may actually be out of focus.

A new study indicates that what appear as signals of distress simply may reflect a culturally adaptive sensitivity in social situations among Asian Americans, the researchers suggest. Such a misreading could have implications for mental health assessment and treatment, they said in a presentation Aug. 25 at the annual meeting of the American Psychological Association in San Francisco.

Their preliminary data indicate that Asian Americans report higher feelings of anxiety than their white counterparts on a widely used instrument of social phobia and anxiety. However, their perceptions about how normal or abnormal the symptoms of social anxiety were among persons of the same gender, age group and ethnicity also were related to their social anxiety inventory scores.

Such perceptions about norms were not related to the social anxiety inventory scores among white Americans. The study compared the responses of 200 Asian Americans and 200 white Americans. Both groups were evenly split by gender.

Social phobia — marked by overwhelming dread or panic in anticipation of, or during, social situations — affects one in eight Americans and is the third most common mental disorder in the United States.

"The Asian Americans scored higher on the social phobia inventory," said Diya Kallivayalil, a doctoral student in psychology. "However, we are beginning to understand that what appears to be social phobias and anxieties may be an expected, normal part of the cultural norm for Asian Americans."

Kallivayalil described the UI study during an APA session on the "Effects of Cultural Variables on Psychological Test Response of Asian Americans." The co-author of the study is her faculty adviser, Sumie Okazaki, a professor of psychology.

The issue is rising in importance as the Asian American population grows in the United States, Okazaki said. Census figures for 2000 showed 10.2 million Asian Americans making up 3.6 percent of the population. Projections are that by 2020 there will 20.2 million Asian Americans in the United States.

"Our findings raise questions about how we look at scores on widely used standardized measures," Okazaki said. "Currently, we don't have a very good way of separating cultural aspects of the distress that scores indicate. Are the results reflecting simply bias, or are we really looking at distress?

"It may be that what Asian Americans are reporting isn't truly distress," she said. "They may just be reporting how they were raised, to be extra sensitive to social evaluations. Their responses reflect more their cultural style than a psychological condition. Because of this, it can be difficult to make an accurate diagnosis."