Self-disclosure and seeking professional help: cross-cultural differences

Abstract

Cross-cultural research on attitudes toward seeking professional help for mental health problems emphasizes the major role played by traditional, collectivist type cultural values. Self-disclosure by people from non-Western backgrounds is little studied despite the emphasis in modern therapeutic approaches on self-disclosure. The present study examines the cultural aspects of self-disclosure and attitudes toward seeking professional psychological help among first and second-generation Greek Australians in Sydney (n = 106), Anglo-Celtic Australians (n = 35), and Greek Cypriots (n = 189). Participants ranged in age from 18 to over 70. A self-report survey measured individualism-collectivism, attitude toward seeking professional help, actual self-disclosure to a friend, hypothetical self disclosure to a counsellor, and social desirability. It was hypothesized that participants who were more collectivist would have less positive attitudes toward seeking professional help, and would be less likely to self-disclose. Results showed modest group, gender, age, generational, and educational level differences and also that participants in general were neither strongly individualistic nor strongly collectivist. Results also showed that all three groups did not differ in their attitudes toward seeking professional psychological help, and that in general they did not have positive attitudes toward seeking professional help. There was a modest positive relationship between individualism and attitudes to seeking psychological help that confirms previous literature. As predicted, the Australian group was most likely to self-disclose. The study confirms that cultural factors affect attitudes toward seeking professional psychological health and willingness to self-disclose.