Part 1 of a 2-Part Series
A brief Cultural Guide in working with Asian Pacific Islanders

Minh-Ha Pham, PsyD

Asian Americans have consistently underutilized mental health services due to:
1) the strong belief that family is their center where the majority of problems can be solved;
2) shame and fear of losing face as well as the reluctance to admit to psychological symptoms as failure of the family to solve own problems internally;
3) the cultural stigma and belief that there is no resolution with mental illness;
4) traditional reliance on other chosen forms of treatment, from herbalists, fortune tellers and matchmakers to temple visits;
5) lack of knowledge about available services, particularly among new working-class immigrants.

Asian Characteristics
Worldview—Major characteristics of most Asian worldviews include:
1) External locus of control: the belief that humans are controlled by forces outside oneself, such as fate, luck, or chance.
2) External locus of responsibility: the belief that others share a certain amount of responsibility for the individual under any circumstances.

As a result of reinforcing experiences, many Asians tend to develop a consistent attitude toward an external locus of control and responsibility as the source of reinforcement that parallels the tradition of de-emphasizing one’s self while heavily focusing on other members of the family, extended family units or group.

Value and Belief Systems:
Many Asian societies typically demonstrate power differentiation, prefer order and acceptance of authority with willingness to observe courteousness, power distance to those in powerful positions (i.e. Taiwan, China, Singapore, and Hong Kong). Most Asian belief systems embrace hierarchy. They endorse collectivism, advocate low individualism, and are expected to integrate moral discipline.

Identity Issues as Asian Americans
Persons of Asian American descent struggle with the question of “Who am I?” as they become progressively more exposed to the standards, norms, and values of the wider society. Absorbed from peers, schools, and the mass media, which uphold Western standards as better than their own, Asian Americans are often placed in situations of extreme culture conflict that may lead to much pain and agony regarding behavioral and physical differences. There are four types of questions for individuals undergoing acculturation conflicts:

1) Assimilation: Seeking to become part of the dominant society to the exclusion of one’s own cultural group.
2) Separation: Identifying exclusively with the Asian culture.
3) Integration/Biculturalism: Retaining many Asian values but adapting to the dominant culture by learning necessary skills and

values. Cultural integration is viewed as a synergistic and an enrichment process. As lives and cultures are shared, each gains new values with the sum greater than its parts.
3) Marginalization: Perceiving one’s own culture as negative but not able to adapt to the American culture.

Concept of Self
Asians conceptualize a much more fluid and unidentified conception of self than most Western psychological theorists. As implied by Buddhism and Taoism, most Asians place less emphasis on self-reliance and independence. Rather, they develop a sense of obligation and responsibility to groups, especially to the family. These concepts of the self affect how they view human relationships and their expectations of interpersonal relationships. Thus, Asian cultures look favorably upon humility and consideration of others’ feelings while looking negatively on strong assertiveness or self-centeredness. Basically, most Asians appear to incorporate more identification with and concern for others into the ways they think and feel about themselves.

Intergenerational Gap
As Asian immigrants, the first generation parents struggle to learn a new language and new cultural rules and standards while raising their families and trying to improve their living standards. The core of the intergeneration gap comes from poor communication between the first generation parents who expect absolute obedience from their children, as well as placing heavy emphasis on education of the young as an investment for the collective future and pride of the family. Mixed messages from the cultural splits of American emphasis on individualism versus Asian values of obedience and submission to family solidarity and absolute authority greatly contribute to the struggle. Although many second-generation Asian Americans accepted their parents’ strict expectations of obedience, Asian parents of first generation need to actively understand their own cultures in depth, and teach their culture and values to their children. Less educated first generation Asian parents, alarmed by American individualistic character and a tendency to enforce preservation of heir homeland cultural traditions without the ability to present their cultural values with depth and meaning risk entertaining the rebellion and under-appreciation of the successive generations, and consequently slow down the pace of necessary new-American cultural assimilation and integration for their children.

Acculturation Conflicts Between Parents and Children
Children with Asian parents encounter a unique challenge because they must deal with cultural differences. Children are raised with two conflicting viewpoints: an American culture that calls for active parental involvement, and a home life that demands individual and community responsibility. Children of Asian descent who are exposed to different cultural standards often experience confusion and/or conflicts with their parent’s backgrounds and different values. Common parent-child issues include not quite fitting in with their peers and being considered “too Americanized.” The difficulty to resolve differences in acculturation results in misunderstandings with their families, miscommunication, and personal conflicts.

Parenting Styles
The Asian American parenting style tends to be more authoritarian and directive than most Euro-American families. Problem behavior in children is thought to be due to a lack of discipline as a result of too much freedom and too many choices allowed with the new American culture.

Key Theme of Shame
In Asian American groups, public discussion of family problems is considered to be a source of embarrassment and an indication of the family’s inability to manage, or failure to solve, problems within the family circle.

Communication
Harmony and “face-saving” are two important characteristics of the Asian communication mode. In order to maintain interpersonal harmony and save face, the majority of Asians emphasize emotional restraint and self-control, careful conformity to rituals of politeness, and avoidance of aggressive persuasion techniques. Indirectness, implicitness, and nonverbal expressions also characterize the communication patterns among Asians. Guided by interpersonal norms, most Asian verbal exchanges avoid argumentative and confrontational modes of communication.

Socialization
Drawing from Confucian and Buddhist assumptions, Asian theories of child development
emphasize the forming of correct behavioral habits. Most Asian socialization includes training for obedience, proper conduct, impulse control, and the acceptance of social obligations, whereas independence, assertiveness, and creativity are not emphasized. Creativity, when found, is often a direct consequence of Western colonial influences. Parents and school teachers are expected to set the standards of personal morality and serve as exemplary models for the child.

Coping Styles
Research on the way of coping by most Asian individuals and families suggests that the experience of stress and the search for meaningful adaptive coping responses occurs at multiple levels of social organization within extended family, and not just at the level of the individual. Many Asians experience the stress level through their family, workplace, and other important social entities simultaneously and reveal a multi-layered coping process.

back to top