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

Session Type: Exchange Symposium

Integrative Statement

Estimating group differences is an enduring challenge for developmental sciences. Disparities are often interpreted in terms of a deficit model in which racial/ethnic minority youth are portrayed as maladapted compared to White youth, distorting our understanding of development (García Coll et al., 1996). This symposium addresses the challenge of precisely estimating cultural differences and similarities using innovative developmental research. It showcases three studies from different research groups, diverse processes and outcomes (e.g., neurobiology, psychopathology), and various methodologies (e.g., daily diary, meta-analysis).
Paper 1 reports that in a diverse sample of adolescents, who provided cortisol and daily diary affect ratings, minorities exhibited flatter diurnal cortisol slopes and less positive affect compared to White youth, but differences were small.
Paper 2 compares the effects of maternal parenting behaviors on child cortisol awakening response and mental health in Latino versus White families and found that maternal positivity predicted better child outcomes for all families.
Paper 3 uses a second-order meta-analysis on psychopathology to test the cultural differences hypothesis (there are large differences between Whites and minorities, while there are small differences between minorities), versus the cultural similarities hypothesis (there are small differences between Whites and minorities, and these are equal or smaller than differences between minorities). Findings supported the cultural similarities hypothesis.
Our distinguished discussant is a renowned expert in child development and will debate how these studies advance our understanding of cultural differences and similarities, how to document health disparities without reinforcing deficit models, and future research directions for the field.

Sub Unit

• Race, Ethnicity, Culture, Context

Chair

• Karina M. Cahill, Arizona State University

Discussant

• Velma McBride Murry, Vanderbilt University

Individual Presentations

• Does Affect Explain Racial/Ethnic Differences in Diurnal Cortisol? A Daily Diary Study - Presenting Author: LillyBelle K. Deer, UC Davis; Non-Presenting Author: Grant S Shields, University of California Davis; Non-Presenting Author: Susannah Ivory, Pennsylvania State University; Non-Presenting Author: Camelia E. Hostinar, University of California-Davis; Non-Presenting Author: Eva H. Telzer, University of North Carolina Chapel Hill

• Positive Parenting in Ethnically Diverse Families: Associations with Cortisol and Mental Health in Early Childhood - Presenting Author: Nicole E. Mahrer, UCLA; Non-Presenting Author: Christine M. Guardino, Dickinson College; Non-Presenting Author: Elysia Poggi Davis, University of Denver, University of California-Irvine; Non-Presenting Author: Madeleine U. Shalowitz, NorthShore University Health System Research Institute; Non-Presenting Author: Emma Adam, Northwestern University; Non-Presenting Author: Sharon L. Ramey, Virginia Tech; Non-Presenting Author: Christine Dunkel Schetter, UCLA

• A Test of the Cultural Differences and Similarities Hypotheses in the Development of Psychopathology - Presenting Author: José M. Causadias, Arizona State University; Non-Presenting Author: Kevin M. Korous, Arizona State University; Non-Presenting Author: Karina M. Cahill, Arizona State University