The effectiveness of somatization in communicating distress in Korean and American cultural contexts

Previous research has documented that Asians tend to somatize negative experiences to a greater degree than Westerners. It is posited that somatization may be a more functional communication strategy in Korean than American context. We examined the effects of somatization in communications of distress among participants from the US and Korea. We predicted that the communicative benefits of somatic words used in distress narratives would depend on the cultural contexts. In Study 1, we found that Korean participants used more somatic words to communicate distress than US participants. Among Korean participants, but not US participants, use of somatic words predicted perceived effectiveness of the communication and expectations of positive reactions (e.g., empathy) from others. In Study 2, we found that when presented with distress narratives of others, Koreans (but not Americans) showed more sympathy in response to narratives using somatic words than narratives using emotional words. These findings suggest that cultural differences in use of somatization may reflect differential effectiveness of somatization in communicating distress across cultural contexts

Processing bias for terror-related stimuli and September 11th-related distress in college students

The psychological sequelae of the September 11th terrorist attacks were examined in 249 college students at three sites in the USA and one site in the UK in the year following the attacks. Participants completed questionnaires tapping 9/ 11-related exposure and distress, and completed a modified Stroop task assessing time to color-name cards containing terror-related and neutral words. Geographical location and amount of exposure to the attacks were significant predictors of self-reported 9/11-related distress, but were not associated with processing bias for terror-related stimuli. Self-reported 9/11-related distress was significantly associated with processing bias, but only in the group (n = 124) which performed the neutral card first. Processing biases for terror-related stimuli are dependent on method of assessment and appear to be more closely tied to self-reported distress than to amount of objective exposure to the attacks