A Test of the Cultural Differences and Similarities Hypotheses in the Development of Psychopathology

• In Event: 2-181 - Understanding Cultural Differences and Similarities in Development: Evidence from Stress Neurobiology and Psychopathology

Integrative Statement

Group comparisons are an enduring problem of cultural research because it is easy to interpret disparities in terms of a deficit model in which the group that differs from the standard group is seen as having failed (Medin et al., 2010). Comparing Whites and minorities in the development of psychopathology is susceptible to the home-field disadvantage, the difficulty intrinsic in research that takes a particular cultural group as the standard for science (Medin et al., 2010). Abnormal development is one important domain in which differences between Whites and minorities may be overestimated, thus reinforcing deficit models.
In this study, we identify two implicit models that guide most research comparing Whites and minorities. The cultural differences hypothesis is the assertion that there are large differences between Whites and racial/ethnic minorities in the United States, while there are small differences between- (e.g., African-Americans, Latinos) and within- (e.g., Latinos: Mexican-Americans, Cuban-Americans) minority groups. Conversely, the cultural similarities hypothesis argues that there are small differences between Whites and minorities, and these differences are equal or smaller in magnitude than differences between- and within-minorities.
We conducted a second order meta-analysis focused on psychopathology, to: 1) Test these hypotheses by estimating the absolute average difference between Whites and minorities, as well as between- and within-minorities, on levels of psychopathology, and 2) Determine potential moderators for these effects, including general study characteristics (developmental period, mean age, dimension and type of psychopathology, sex distribution, years of education, decade of publication, and measure of psychopathology) and meta-analytic method moderators (meta-analytic quality, inclusion of published and unpublished sources, reported effect size metric, and statistical method of aggregating data).
Through our systematic search in PsycINFO, Web of Science, and ProQuest Dissertations, we identified 16 meta-analyses (13% unpublished) on 493 primary studies (N = 3,036,749). Differences between Whites and minorities (d+ = .23, 95% CI [.18, .28]), and between-minorities (d+ = .30, 95% CI [.12, .48]) were small in magnitude. We found the same pattern of results averaging across relative rather than absolute differences. Compared to Whites, minorities had higher mean-levels of psychopathology, although these differences were very small. White-minority differences remained small across moderators. These findings support the cultural similarities hypothesis. We discuss their implications and future research directions.

Authors

• José M. Causadias, Arizona State University
  Presenting Author

• Kevin M. Korous, Arizona State University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Karina M. Cahill, Arizona State University
  Non-Presenting Author