THE PROTECTIVE ROLE OF CULTURAL VALUES ON MENTAL HEALTH IN THE FACE OF SOCIAL REJECTION

Social rejection can be a harmful threat to important interpersonal relationships and supportive social networks. It has been shown that certain cultural values may buffer against ethnic/racial stressors such as discrimination, which can be understood as a social stressor attributed to identity factors (i.e., ethnicity and/or race). The potentially protective cultural values (i.e., familism, religiosity, and respect) are primarily seen and studied in Latine populations though they may be seen across various minority cultures. This study aimed to examine these values as a buffer against general social rejection, not attributable to identity, in a cross-cultural sample to elucidate the impact these values may have across populations. An online social ostracism task (Wolf et al., 2015) was used to simulate ambiguous social rejection. Participants (n = 120) were randomized into a priming condition where they completed a cultural values assessment directly prior to the rejection task, or the neutral condition where participants were instructed to wait on the paused screen until the rejection task. Participants positive and negative affect were assessed pre-and post-task and surprisingly, negative affect decreased after completion of the social rejection task suggesting that rejection induction was not achieved. Cultural values, priming condition, and affect were assessed and analyses showed that those with higher cultural values reported even lower negative affect post-rejection than those with lower cultural values, however, only familism predicted negative affect post-rejection, contrary to the hypotheses. These findings show that a more robust rejection is necessary to induce the perception of rejection. Additionally, these cultural values should be studied in a clinical population rather than subclinical to best understand the potential protective nature of culture in the context of mental health.