Dressler William W, Balieiro Mauro C, Ribeiro Rosane P, dos Santos Jose E
Department of Anthropology, The University of Alabama, PO Box 870210, Tuscaloosa, AL 35487-0210, USA.
Soc Sci Med. 2007 Nov;65(10):2058-69. doi: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2007.06.020. Epub 2007 Aug 3.
Cultural consonance refers to the degree to which individuals, in their own beliefs and behaviors, approximate the prototypes for belief and behavior encoded in shared cultural models. In previous cross-sectional studies, lower cultural consonance in several cultural domains was associated with worse health outcomes, including greater psychological distress. The current paper extends these findings in three ways. First, the effect of cultural consonance on depressive symptoms is tested in a prospective study. Second, it is hypothesized that the effect of cultural consonance in a specific cultural domain will depend on the degree of cultural consensus within that domain: the higher the cultural consensus, the greater the effect of change in cultural consonance in that domain on depressive symptoms. Third, it is hypothesized that cultural consonance will have an inverse effect on depressive symptoms independent of the occurrence of stressful life events (a well-known risk factor for depression). We tested these hypotheses in a study conducted in urban Brazil, and found that change in cultural consonance (assessed as a general construct) was associated with depressive symptoms at a 2-year follow-up. Furthermore, cultural consonance in the domains in which there was highest cultural consensus--the domains of family life and lifestyle--was more strongly associated with depressive symptoms at follow-up than cultural consonance in domains with lower cultural consensus. Finally, all of these effects were independent of stressful life events. These results lend further support to the importance of cultural consonance in relation to human health.
文化一致性是指个体在其自身的信仰和行为方面与共享文化模式中所编码的信仰和行为原型的接近程度。在以往的横断面研究中，几个文化领域中较低的文化一致性与较差的健康结果相关，包括更严重的心理困扰。本文从三个方面扩展了这些发现。第一，在一项前瞻性研究中检验文化一致性对抑郁症状的影响。第二，假设在特定文化领域中文化一致性的影响将取决于该领域内的文化共识程度：文化共识越高，该领域内文化一致性的变化对抑郁症状的影响就越大。第三，假设文化一致性对抑郁症状有反向影响，且独立于应激性生活事件的发生（抑郁的一个众所周知的风险因素）。我们在巴西城市进行的一项研究中检验了这些假设，发现在两年的随访中，文化一致性的变化（作为一个总体结构进行评估）与抑郁症状相关。此外，在文化共识最高的领域——家庭生活和生活方式领域——的文化一致性在随访中比在文化共识较低领域的文化一致性与抑郁症状的关联更强。最后，所有这些影响都独立于应激性生活事件。这些结果进一步支持了文化一致性对人类健康的重要性。
