PENGARUH ORIENTASI BUDAYA INDIVIDUAL, JENIS KELAMIN, DAN ORIENTASI BUDAYA MASYARAKAT TERHADAP GEJAL

Tjipto Susana,

2009 | Disertasi |

Cross cultural studies indicated that manifestation of depression in somatic complaints was common in non-Western countries. This expression is different from that of Western society who generally expressed it in non-somatic complaints, usually called as Pure Depression. The differences were assumed to be related to differences in cultural orientation between Western and non-Western countries. Western countries generally have individualistic orientation, whereas non-Western countries generally have collectivistic orientation. At the individual level, collectivistic orientation is called allocentrism and individualistic orientation is called idiocentrism. From social construction explanation, allocentric person tends to develop somatic meaning and idiocentric person tends to develop psychological meaning. These somatization and psychologyzation process are assumed to be related to differences in manifestation of depression. Some studies also showed that manifestation of depression in somatic symptoms is more commonly found in women than men. This phenomenon is assumed to be related to social construction and biological factors. Based on literature reviews, the researcher proposed the purpose of this study as to examining the role of individual’s cultural orientation (idiocentrism-allocentrism), society’s cultural orientation (individualism-collectivism), and sex in developing somatization and pure depression symptoms of distressed persons. Subjects involved in this study were 185 patients with somatization disorder, depression disorder, and person with symptoms leads to depression disorder and/or somatization, but did not meet diagnosis criteria for both disorders. All subjects experience moderate to severe life distress and came from individualistic and collectivistic society. Research design used in current study was quantitative-qualitative mixed method with dominant-less dominant design conducted in parallel (QUAN + qual) (Creswell, 1994; Tashakkori & Teddlie, 1998). Data were collected by interview, depression scale, somatization scale, and idiocentrism-allocentrism scale. Scores from the scales were analyzed quantitatively using Structural Equation Model (SEM). Whereas interview data were analyzed qualitatively using case study approach. The results of current study indicated that: (1) individual’s and society’s cultural orientation have direct effect on somatization and depression symptoms; (2) sex has no effect on somatization and depression symptoms; (3) the effect of individual’s cultural orientation on somatization and depression symptoms is not moderated by sex; (4) the effect of individual’s cultural orientation on somatization and depression symptoms is moderated by society’s cultural orientation; (5) in collectivistic society, somatization symptoms are a prodromal symptoms of depression and vice versa; (6) in individualistic society, there is no correlation between somatization and depression. Keywords: depression, pure depression, distress, sex, individual’s cultural orientation, society‘s cultural orientation, psychologyzation, somatization

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