The IBM-HS defines cultural influences as “the values, beliefs, language, rituals, traditions, and other behaviors that are passed from one generation to another within any social group” (Helms & Cook, 1999, p. 24) that shape people’s perceptions, including their help-seeking perceptions. There is extensive scholarship on how cultural influences related to shared cultural identities such as ethnicity (Martinez et al., 2020), gender (Vogel et al., 2011), age (Murphy & Mackenzie, 2023), rural residence (Brown et al., 2015), religion (Al-Krenawi & Graham, 2011), and generational status (Garriott et al., 2017) influence help seeking.
For more details about this help-seeking determinant, please read Hammer and colleagues (2024), from which a portion of the information about this construct is excerpted.
A description of available cultural influences measures can be found on the Cultural Influences Measures page.