Culture and the self: Implications for Koreans' mental health

This questionnaire study investigated the role of Korean culture in the way Koreans view themselves and how these Koreans' self-construals, in turn, affect their mental health in two sociocultural environments. A total of 209 Koreans in Seoul and 158 Korean immigrants in the Detroit area participated. Factor analysis of self-description items indicated that both independent and interdependent construals of the self coexist in the individual Korean. Regression and path analysis confirmed the hypothesis that Koreans' interdependent view of the self is a function of Korean culture as manifested in endorsement of traditional Korean values. Older age, having less education, female gender, and growing up in rural areas were also significant predictors of Seoul Koreans' interdependent self-construal, whereas certain aspects of the Korean immigrants' life experience in the U.S. (adaptive limitations caused by poor English proficiency, perception of more personal limits and of less discrimination) were significant predictors of Detroit Koreans' interdependent self-construal. The predictors investigated did not explain the variance in independent self-construals as well as they did in interdependent self-construals. Older age was the only significant predictor of Koreans' independent self-construal in both samples.;Also investigated was whether congruence or incongruence between an individual Korean's culture, as manifested in self-construal, and his or her sociocultural environment (Seoul or Detroit) can be a source of psychological well-being or distress. The congruence hypothesis was not supported by the data, which failed to show any significant interaction between each type of self-construal and the sociocultural environments on any measures of mental health (depression, somatization, or relational well-being). One reason proposed to explain the failure to find these interactions was that the sociocultural characteristics of Seoul may no longer be different enough from those of the Detroit area to test the congruence hypothesis. An unexpected association between interdependent self-construal and somatization was identified in the Seoul sample. However, as expected, independent self-construal was associated with fewer depressive symptoms for Detroit immigrants. Implications for the development of social work practice methods based on the culture and self perspective were outlined.