Normative culture, cultural competence and mental health in Sweden

Abstract

Positive effects of benevolence and prosocial behavior on mental and physical health have been well documented in psychological literature. Within this empirical framework, the present study explores the relationship between cultural norms and emotional health based on cognitive data collected in Sweden (2008–2009, n=128). Ethnographic data suggest that socialization of appropriate cultural conduct (i.e., achieving competence in normative culture and acquiring corresponding cultural models) generally precludes successful recruitment of social support and does not stimulate growth of social networks in Sweden. The results of the present study indicate that individual endorsement of several normative dimensions was associated with measures of negative psychological attitudes (e.g., distrust, indifference, perfectionism and insecurity) in the Swedish sample. Neither individual cultural competence nor informants endorsement of Swedish normative dimensions were found to affect subjective wellbeing in the data, but lower scores on the first normative factor predicted higher likelihood of forming negative mental habits, as did male gender. Implications for studying the effects of norm internalization on psychological life are discussed.

Keywords:

• cultural norms
• cultural competence
• mental health
• subjective wellbeing
• Sweden

Notes on contributor

Kateryna Maltseva holds a PhD in Philosophy from the National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy (2002) and a PhD in Anthropology from the University of Connecticut, Storrs (2010) where she taught Psychological and Cognitive Anthropology for several consecutive years. She specializes in the interrelations between culture and human mental life, her major interests being sociocultural factors in mental health, social intelligence, psychometrics and measurement theory.

Notes

1. The values sections will not be discussed in this publication.

2. The list of normative items included a broad spectrum of norms, not only those related to prosocial behavior.