Cross‐Cultural Differences on Affective, Cognitive, and Psychiatric Measures: Evidence From a British‐Chinese Comparison
ABSTRACT Individuals worldwide share basic affective and cognitive abilities, and receive mental health diagnoses using similar scales. However, these measures have been predominantly developed and validated in Western contexts. Here, we compared British (N = 187; age 19–73 years) and Chinese partic...
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| Main Authors: | , , , , , , , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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Wiley
2025-06-01
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| Series: | Mental Health Science |
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| Online Access: | https://doi.org/10.1002/mhs2.70020 |
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| author | Boyin Feng Rosanna Sheehan Priyanka Utama Yixuan Wang Jiamin Bao Oliver J. Robinson Yinyin Zang Christina O. Carlisi |
| author_facet | Boyin Feng Rosanna Sheehan Priyanka Utama Yixuan Wang Jiamin Bao Oliver J. Robinson Yinyin Zang Christina O. Carlisi |
| author_sort | Boyin Feng |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | ABSTRACT Individuals worldwide share basic affective and cognitive abilities, and receive mental health diagnoses using similar scales. However, these measures have been predominantly developed and validated in Western contexts. Here, we compared British (N = 187; age 19–73 years) and Chinese participants (N = 194; age 19–60 years) on behavioral tasks of facial emotion recognition and sustained attention, evaluating affect and cognition, as well as mental health measures of anxiety, depression, obsessive‐compulsive disorder, and impulsivity. Comparing British and Chinese populations is particularly important as they represent distinct cultural traditions in emotional expression, cognitive processing, and mental health conceptualization. We found that British participants were significantly better at recognizing emotions, especially negative ones; while Chinese participants showed higher obsessive‐compulsive symptoms, driven primarily by the number‐meaning item, the tendency to assign significance to numerical information. The groups showed negligible differences in sustained attention and other mental health measures. This study provides novel evidence that culture has a greater influence on affective abilities than cognitive ones, and highlights concerns about cultural biases in established mental health scales. However, these findings may not generalize beyond British and Chinese populations, which calls for broader cross‐cultural research. |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj-art-71eee8f0286d4400a1a125b989c15916 |
| institution | OA Journals |
| issn | 2642-3588 |
| language | English |
| publishDate | 2025-06-01 |
| publisher | Wiley |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Mental Health Science |
| spelling | doaj-art-71eee8f0286d4400a1a125b989c159162025-08-20T02:22:59ZengWileyMental Health Science2642-35882025-06-0132n/an/a10.1002/mhs2.70020Cross‐Cultural Differences on Affective, Cognitive, and Psychiatric Measures: Evidence From a British‐Chinese ComparisonBoyin Feng0Rosanna Sheehan1Priyanka Utama2Yixuan Wang3Jiamin Bao4Oliver J. Robinson5Yinyin Zang6Christina O. Carlisi7Research Department of Clinical, Educational and Health Psychology University College London London UKResearch Department of Clinical, Educational and Health Psychology University College London London UKResearch Department of Clinical, Educational and Health Psychology University College London London UKBeijing Key Laboratory of Behavior and Mental Health, Philosophy Building, School of Psychological and Cognitive Sciences Peking University Beijing ChinaBeijing Key Laboratory of Behavior and Mental Health, Philosophy Building, School of Psychological and Cognitive Sciences Peking University Beijing ChinaResearch Department of Clinical, Educational and Health Psychology University College London London UKBeijing Key Laboratory of Behavior and Mental Health, Philosophy Building, School of Psychological and Cognitive Sciences Peking University Beijing ChinaResearch Department of Clinical, Educational and Health Psychology University College London London UKABSTRACT Individuals worldwide share basic affective and cognitive abilities, and receive mental health diagnoses using similar scales. However, these measures have been predominantly developed and validated in Western contexts. Here, we compared British (N = 187; age 19–73 years) and Chinese participants (N = 194; age 19–60 years) on behavioral tasks of facial emotion recognition and sustained attention, evaluating affect and cognition, as well as mental health measures of anxiety, depression, obsessive‐compulsive disorder, and impulsivity. Comparing British and Chinese populations is particularly important as they represent distinct cultural traditions in emotional expression, cognitive processing, and mental health conceptualization. We found that British participants were significantly better at recognizing emotions, especially negative ones; while Chinese participants showed higher obsessive‐compulsive symptoms, driven primarily by the number‐meaning item, the tendency to assign significance to numerical information. The groups showed negligible differences in sustained attention and other mental health measures. This study provides novel evidence that culture has a greater influence on affective abilities than cognitive ones, and highlights concerns about cultural biases in established mental health scales. However, these findings may not generalize beyond British and Chinese populations, which calls for broader cross‐cultural research.https://doi.org/10.1002/mhs2.70020context effectscultural differencesemotion recognitionmental healthpsychopathologysustained attention |
| spellingShingle | Boyin Feng Rosanna Sheehan Priyanka Utama Yixuan Wang Jiamin Bao Oliver J. Robinson Yinyin Zang Christina O. Carlisi Cross‐Cultural Differences on Affective, Cognitive, and Psychiatric Measures: Evidence From a British‐Chinese Comparison Mental Health Science context effects cultural differences emotion recognition mental health psychopathology sustained attention |
| title | Cross‐Cultural Differences on Affective, Cognitive, and Psychiatric Measures: Evidence From a British‐Chinese Comparison |
| title_full | Cross‐Cultural Differences on Affective, Cognitive, and Psychiatric Measures: Evidence From a British‐Chinese Comparison |
| title_fullStr | Cross‐Cultural Differences on Affective, Cognitive, and Psychiatric Measures: Evidence From a British‐Chinese Comparison |
| title_full_unstemmed | Cross‐Cultural Differences on Affective, Cognitive, and Psychiatric Measures: Evidence From a British‐Chinese Comparison |
| title_short | Cross‐Cultural Differences on Affective, Cognitive, and Psychiatric Measures: Evidence From a British‐Chinese Comparison |
| title_sort | cross cultural differences on affective cognitive and psychiatric measures evidence from a british chinese comparison |
| topic | context effects cultural differences emotion recognition mental health psychopathology sustained attention |
| url | https://doi.org/10.1002/mhs2.70020 |
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