Monash Institute of Cognitive and Clinical Neuroscience and School of Psychological Sciences, Monash University, Clayton, Victoria, Australia.
National University of Malaysia, Bangi, Malaysia.
Br J Clin Psychol. 2018 Sep;57(3):382-396. doi: 10.1111/bjc.12181. Epub 2018 Mar 23.
Distortions in autobiographical memory have been implicated in major depressive disorder (MDD). Those with MDD demonstrate a 'depressogenic' autobiographical life structure. Research has not examined how culture influences this process. We investigated whether Malay individuals (members of an interdependent culture) with MDD demonstrated a 'depressogenic' autobiographical life structure similar to that of British individuals (members of an independent culture) with MDD.
A 2 (Culture; Malay, British) × 2 (Mood; depressed, control) cross-sectional design using a card sort task and self-report measures was used.
Malay individuals with MDD or no history of MDD completed the life-structure card-sorting task, which provided a novel method for investigating organizational structure of the life narrative. These data were compared to previously collected data in which British individuals with MDD or without MDD had completed the same task within the same experimental protocol.
Pan-culturally those with MDD had greater negativity (i.e., used more negative attributes), negative redundancy (i.e., used the same negative attributes repeatedly across life chapters) and negative emodiversity (i.e., had greater variety and relative abundance of negative attributes), and reduced positive redundancy (i.e., used the same positive attributes repeatedly across chapters) in their structuring relative to controls. While the British MDD group had greater compartmentalization (i.e., the negative and positive attributes were clustered separately across different chapters) than British controls, the Malay MDD group had lower levels of compartmentalization than Malay controls.
The findings suggest culture may shape aspects of the autobiographical life structure in MDD.
The majority of the literature investigating depression pertains to individuals from European Western cultures, despite recognition that depression ranks as one of the most debilitating diseases worldwide. This raises questions as to whether current depression models and interventions can be applied universally or whether they are limited to European Western groups. The current study found that pan-culturally those with MDD had similar structuring of their life story relative to controls. However, there were some cultural differences that need to be considered (e.g., Malay individuals provided less detailed, less elaborate and less emotionally diverse life stories and while the British MDD group had greater compartmentalization than British controls, the Malay MDD group had lower levels of compartmentalization than Malay controls). Limitations of the study included group differences in gender and mood at the time of testing. Cultural differences in the number of attributes used may have influenced findings. Only the Malay group completed the individualism-collectivism measure.
自传体记忆扭曲与重度抑郁症（MDD）有关。患有 MDD 的人表现出“抑郁生成”的自传体生活结构。研究尚未探讨文化如何影响这一过程。我们调查了马来人（一个相互依存文化的成员）是否与 MDD 患者表现出与 MDD 患者相同的“抑郁生成”自传体生活结构。
使用卡片分类任务和自我报告措施的 2（文化；马来人、英国人）×2（情绪；抑郁、对照）横断面设计。
马来语 MDD 患者或无 MDD 病史的患者完成生活结构卡片分类任务，这为研究生活叙事的组织结构提供了一种新方法。这些数据与以前收集的数据进行了比较，以前的数据是在相同的实验方案中，MDD 患者或无 MDD 病史的英国人完成了相同的任务。
在跨文化层面上，MDD 患者在结构上的负面性更强（即使用更多的负面属性）、负面冗余性（即重复使用相同的负面属性跨越生活章节）和负面情绪多样性（即使用更多的负面属性）更大的多样性和相对丰富性），以及与对照组相比，减少了积极冗余（即在章节之间重复使用相同的积极属性）。虽然英国 MDD 组的分组化程度（即负面和积极属性分别聚类在不同章节中）高于英国对照组，但马来 MDD 组的分组化程度低于马来对照组。
研究结果表明，文化可能会影响 MDD 患者自传体生活结构的某些方面。
调查抑郁症的大部分文献都涉及来自欧洲西方文化的个体，尽管人们认识到抑郁症是全球最具致残性的疾病之一。这引发了一些问题，即当前的抑郁模型和干预措施是否可以普遍应用，或者它们是否仅限于欧洲西方群体。本研究发现，跨文化层面上，MDD 患者的生活故事结构与对照组相似。然而，存在一些需要考虑的文化差异（例如，马来人提供的生活故事较少、不详细、不复杂且情绪多样性较低，而英国 MDD 组的分组化程度高于英国对照组，但马来 MDD 组的分组化程度低于马来对照组）。该研究的局限性包括测试时组间的性别和情绪差异。使用属性数量的文化差异可能会影响发现。只有马来人完成了个人主义-集体主义的测量。
