University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada.
Shiga University, Shiga, Japan.
PLoS One. 2021 Apr 26;16(4):e0250671. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0250671. eCollection 2021.
Sleep is a fundamental biological process that all humans exhibit, and there is much evidence that people suffer adverse health outcomes from insufficient sleep. Despite this evidence, much research demonstrates significant heterogeneity in the amounts that people sleep across cultures. This suggests that despite serving fundamental biological functions, sleep is also subject to cultural influence. Using self-report and actigraphy data we examined sleep among European Canadian, Asian Canadian, and Japanese university students. Significant cultural differences emerged in terms of various parameters of sleep (e.g. sleep time), and beliefs about sleep (e.g. perceived relation between sleep and health). Despite sleeping significantly less than European Canadians, Japanese participants slept less efficiently, yet reported being less tired and having better health. Moreover, relative to European Canadians, Japanese participants perceived a weaker relation between sleep and physical health, and had a significantly shorter ideal amount of sleep. Asian Canadians' sleep behaviors and attitudes were largely similar to European Canadians suggesting that people acculturate to local cultural sleep norms.
睡眠是所有人类都表现出的基本生理过程，有大量证据表明，人们因睡眠不足而遭受不良健康后果。尽管有这些证据，但许多研究表明，不同文化背景的人睡眠量存在显著的异质性。这表明，尽管睡眠具有基本的生物学功能，但它也受到文化的影响。本研究使用自我报告和活动记录仪数据，调查了欧洲裔加拿大、亚裔加拿大和日本大学生的睡眠情况。在睡眠的各个参数（如睡眠时间）和睡眠观念（如睡眠与健康的关系）方面，都出现了显著的文化差异。尽管日本参与者的睡眠时间明显比欧洲裔加拿大人少，但他们的睡眠效率却较低，但报告说疲劳程度较低，健康状况较好。此外，与欧洲裔加拿大人相比，日本参与者认为睡眠与身体健康之间的关系较弱，理想的睡眠时间也明显更短。亚裔加拿大的睡眠行为和态度与欧洲裔加拿大人大致相似，这表明人们会适应当地的文化睡眠规范。
