Culture and Health

Culture and Health

If the cultural neuroscience project investigates how culture may be “embrained,” the second project on culture and health seeks to understand how culture may be “embodied.” It addresses a number of intriguing questions of how socio-cultural contexts might influence the biology of the body.

Please see the following publication for a general overview of this project.

• Kitayama, S., & Park, J. (2017). Emotion and biological health: the socio-cultural moderation. Current Opinion in Psychology, 17, 99–105. http://doi.org/10.1016/j.copsyc.2017.06.016

The project is currently comprised of several specific foci including (i) culture, health, and personality, (ii) gene expression and health, and (iii) aging and lifespan development.

Many individual difference variables including the so-called “Big-5” personality traits are more or less universal. However, this does not mean that these variables are related to health in the same fashion. For example, we have found that Americans who reportedly experience negative affect often tend to show higher levels of proinflammatory biomarkers (a sign of negative biological health). However, this association is absent among Japanese. This cultural difference resonates with another cultural difference – this time related to neuroticism, a global personality traits linked to negative emotions such as anger, guilt, and the like. Simply put, we have recently found that Japanese who are high in neuroticism are healthier when their health is assessed with proinflammatory biomarkers. This association is reversed among some sizable minority of Americans who are highly “individualistic.”

If you want to learn more about this work, please see the following representative publications:

• Coe, C. L., Love, G. D., Karasawa, M., Kawakami, N., Kitayama, S., Markus, H. R., Tracy, R. P., Ryff, C. D. (2011). Population differences in proinflammatory biology: Japanese have healthier profiles than Americans. Brain, Behavior, and Immunity.

• Park, J., Kitayama, S., Karasawa, M., Curhan, K., Markus, H. R., Kawakami, N., et al. (2013). Clarifying the links between social support and health: Culture, stress, and neuroticism matter. Journal of Health Psychology, 18(2), 226–235. doi:10.1177/1359105312439731

• Miyamoto, Y., Boylan, J. M., Coe, C. L., Curhan, K. B., Levine, C. S., Markus, H. R., et al. (2013). Negative emotions predict elevated interleukin-6 in the United States but not in Japan. Brain Behavior and Immunity. doi:10.1016/j.bbi.2013.07.173

• Park, J., Kitayama, S., Markus, H. R., Coe, C. L., Miyamoto, Y., Karasawa, M., et al. (2013). Social Status and Anger Expression: The Cultural Moderation Hypothesis. Emotion, 13(6), 1122–1131. doi:10.1037/a0034273

• Kitayama, S., Park, J., Boylan, J. M., Miyamoto, Y., Levine, C. S., Markus, H. R., et al. (2015). Expression of Anger and Ill Health in Two Cultures: An Examination of Inflammation and Cardiovascular Risk. Psychological Science. doi:10.1177/0956797614561268

• Levine, C. S., Miyamoto, Y., Markus, H. R., Rigotti, A., Boylan, J. M., Park, J., et al. (2016). Culture and Healthy Eating. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 42(10), 1335–1348.

• Kitayama, S., & Park, J. (2017). Emotion and biological health: the socio-cultural moderation. Current Opinion in Psychology, 17, 99–105. http://doi.org/10.1016/j.copsyc.2017.06.016

• Kitayama, S., Park, J., Miyamoto, Y., Date, H., Boylan, J. M., Markus, H. R., et al. (2018). Behavioral Adjustment Moderates the Link Between Neuroticism and Biological Health Risk: A U.S.–Japan Comparison Study. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 44(6), 809–822. http://doi.org/10.1177/0146167217748603

Click here to return to the top of this page.

Click here to return to our home page.

Another project looks more closely into expression of 50+ genes that are linked to inflammation and anti-viral defense. Prior work shows that social adversities up-regulates genes involved in inflammation while down-regulating those involved in anti-viral defense. This response has been called the conserved transcriptional response to adversity or CTRA. Building on this work, we have investigated whether positive experiences may be linked to reduction of CTRA in Japanese worker samples.

If you want to learn more about this work, please see the following representative publications.

• Kitayama, S., Akutsu, S., Uchida, Y., & Cole, S. W. (2016). Work, meaning, and gene regulation: Findings from a Japanese information technology firm. Psychoneuroendocrinology, 72, 175–181.

• Uchida, Y., Kitayama, S., Akutsu, S., Park, J., & Cole, S. W. (2018). Optimism and the conserved transcriptional response to adversity. Health Psychology, 37(11), 1077–1080. http://doi.org/10.1037/hea0000675

Click here to return to the top of this page.

Click here to go back to our home page.

Aging happens to everyone everywhere. However, its impacts on wellbeing and health may vary substantially from one person to the next, depending in part on the cultural backgrounds of the individuals. We have found that among Americans there is a strong psychological bias favoring positive (vs. negative) emotions in late adulthood. This bias, however, is accompanied by a loss of the sense of meaning in life. We interpreted this pattern as resulting from some degree of alienation resulting from a cultural pressure of staying active, positive, and thus “young” even in late adulthood in American culture. As may be expected, this pattern appears to be absent in Japan.

If you want to learn more about this work, please see the following representative publications.

• Grossmann I, Na J, Varnum MEW, Park D. C., Kitayama S, Nisbett RE. (2010). Reasoning about social conflicts improves into old age. Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, 104, 7746–7250.

• Grossmann, I., Na, J., Varnum, M. E. W., Kitayama, S., & Nisbett, R. E. (2012). A Route to Well-Being: Intelligence Versus Wise Reasoning. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General. doi:10.1037/a0029560

• Grossmann, I., Karasawa, M., Izumi, S., Na, J., Varnum, M. E. W., Kitayama, S., & Nisbett, R. E. (2012). Aging and Wisdom: Culture Matters. Psychological Science, 23(10), 1059–1066. doi:10.1177/0956797612446025

• Chopik, W. J., & Kitayama, S. (2018). Personality change across the life span: Insights from a cross-cultural, longitudinal study. Journal of Personality, 86(3), 508–521. http://doi.org/10.1111/jopy.12332

Click here to return to the top of this page.

Click here to go back to our home page.