The neural processing of social norms in biculturals: The relation between cultural tightness and semantic processing.

Perceptions of the appropriateness and inappropriateness of social norms across three ethnic groups in the U.S. were investigated using event-related potentials. N400 measures were elicited for appropriate versus inappropriate social scenarios from Asian American, Latinx, and European American participants along with self-reported perceptions of cultural tightness (Gelfand et al., 2011). As hypothesized, inappropriate scenarios elicited larger N400 responses compared to appropriate scenarios and the N400 was correlated with self-reported tightness in frontal electrodes. No differences across ethnic groups emerged in either self-reported tightness or in N400 response to norm deviations. Implications for norm adoption in bicultural individuals, replicability of previous findings, and culturally "embrained" processes of acculturation are discussed.

Cultural differences in sensitivity to social context: detecting affective incongruity using the N400.

East Asians and Asian-Americans tend to allocate relatively greater attention to background context compared to European Americans across a variety of cognitive and neural measures. We sought to extend these findings of cultural differences to affective stimuli using the N400, which has been shown to be sensitive to deep processing of affective information. The degree to which Asian-Americans and European Americans responded to semantic incongruity between emotionally expressive faces (i.e., smiling or frowning) and background affective scenes was measured. As predicted, Asian-Americans showed a greater N400 to incongruent trials than to congruent trials. In contrast, European Americans showed no difference in amplitude across the two conditions. Furthermore, greater affective N400 incongruity was associated with higher interdependent self-construals. These data suggest that Asian-Americans and those with interdependent self-construals process the relationship between perceived facial emotion and affective background context to a greater degree than European Americans and those with independent self-construals. Implications for neural and cognitive differences in everyday social interactions, and cultural differences in analytic and holistic thinking are discussed.

Cultural differences in the visual processing of meaning: detecting incongruities between background and foreground objects using the N400.

East Asians have been found to allocate relatively greater attention to background objects, whereas European Americans have been found to allocate relatively greater attention to foreground objects. This is well documented across a variety of cognitive measures. We used a modification of the Ganis and Kutas (2003) N400 event-related potential design to measure the degree to which Asian Americans and European Americans responded to semantic incongruity between target objects and background scenes. As predicted, Asian Americans showed a greater negativity to incongruent trials than to congruent trials. In contrast, European Americans showed no difference in amplitude across the two conditions. Furthermore, smaller magnitude N400 incongruity effects were associated with higher independent self-construal scores. These data suggest that Asian Americans are processing the relationship between foreground and background objects to a greater degree than European Americans, which is consistent with hypothesized greater holistic processing among East Asians. Implications for using neural measures, the role of semantic processing to understand cultural differences in cognition, and the relationship between self construal and neural measures of cognition are discussed.

The effect of an environmental stressor on gender differences on the awakening cortisol response.

OBJECTIVES: The aim of the current study was to investigate the effect of an environmental stressor, examination stress, on waking cortisol levels. METHODS: Sixty-two subjects were tested upon awakening during periods of low and high examination stress. Samples were collected on 4 sampling days total, two of these days were during a low examination period and two of these days were during a high examination period. During each day, subjects collected salivary samples at waking, 30 min after waking, and 60 min after waking. Subjects also completed three questions asking about their present mood. RESULTS: As a group, subjects had higher negative mood on the mornings during the high examination stress period than on the mornings during the low examination stress period. Furthermore, when the sex of the subject was considered, cortisol levels were found to be significantly higher in females during the high examination period, but not in males. However, the changes in waking cortisol across the two stress periods were not correlated with the changes in psychological stress across the same sessions for either sex. In conclusion, the waking cortisol was found to be sensitive to the examination stressor protocol, but only in females. CONCLUSIONS: These findings, in conjunction with others, may help to build more comprehensive models of how the two sexes differ in hormonal and psychological stress responses.

Culture and context: East Asian American and European American differences in P3 event-related potentials and self-construal.

Research has demonstrated differences in social and cognitive processes between East Asians and European Americans. Whereas East Asians have been characterized as being more sensitive to situational context and attending more to the perceptual field, European Americans have been characterized as being more focused on the object and being more field independent. The goal of the present experiment was to investigate differences in neural responses to target objects and stimulus context between East Asian Americans and European Americans using a three-stimulus novelty P3 event-related potential design. As hypothesized, European Americans displayed relatively greater target P3 amplitudes, indexing attention to target events, whereas East Asian Americans displayed relatively greater novelty P3 amplitudes, indexing attention to contextually deviant events. Furthermore, the authors found that interdependent self-construal mediated the relationship between culture and the novelty P3. These findings identify a specific pattern of neural activity associated with established cultural differences in contextual sensitivity.

Self-construal, mental distress, and family relations: a mediated moderation analysis with Asian American adolescents.

The interactive effects between interdependent and independent self-construal on family cohesion and mental distress were examined. Survey responses from 153 Asian American high school students supported the hypothesized moderation of interdependence by independence on family cohesion, which was found to further mediate the relationship between self-construal and mental distress. Specifically, interdependence was positively associated with family cohesion when independence was high and negatively associated with family cohesion when independence was low. Accounting for the mediator effects of family cohesion, mental distress was positively associated with interdependence and more so for those low on independence than those high on independence. The benefits of biculturalism and research implications for the bidimensional conceptualization of self-construal for ethnic minority populations are discussed.