Ito, K., Masuda, T.（増田貴彦）, Koyama, A.（小宮あすか）, & Hioki, K.（日置孝一）(2015). Seeking help from close, same-sex friends: Relational costs for Japanese and personal costs for European Canadians. 親密な同性友人に援助を求める際のコストの文化差 Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, 32(4), 529-554. doi: 10.1177/0265407514539780
Seeking help from close friends is beneficial for help seekers but also entails costs. Past research on social support suggested that East Asians were more likely than their North American counterparts to perceive relational costs (e.g., causing trouble for close friends), whereas North Americans tended to selectively perceive personal costs (e.g., admitting incompetence). We first collected European Canadian and Japanese people’s everyday experiences of help-seeking behaviors. We then examined whether norms would mediate the relationship between perceptions of costs and expected closeness in friendship. For European Canadians, we found such meditating relationships only for personal costs; whereas for the Japanese, the relationships were observed for both personal and relational costs. Implications for social cognitive research and clinical research are discussed.