Abstract:
Background: Current social cognition measures may be culturally biased because norms are based on native populations. Ethnic minorities tend to score lower on Theory of Mind (ToM) and emotion recognition, yet cultural bias in social norms remained unexamined. Differences in scores may reflect healthy cultural variation rather than deficits, demonstrating the need for culturally sensitive normative data. Minority exposure to stressors also exacerbates the risk of developing psychological disorders such as schizophrenia. This study therefore investigated the relationship between psychotic experiences and social norms, and the possible moderating role of cultural background.

Method: In this cross-sectional study, social norms and psychotic experiences were assessed via self-report. Cultural differences in judging socially inappropriate behaviour as appropriate (break errors) and socially appropriate behaviour as inappropriate (overadhere errors) were analyzed, controlling for age, education, gender, and cultural background. Native Dutch were compared to non-Western cultural backgrounds (participant or at least one parent born in Surinam or Morocco).

Results: Forty-eight participants (24 native Dutch; 24 non-Western background) showed no significant differences in break or overadhere errors. The association between psychotic experiences and social norms was non-significant, also cultural background did not moderate this relationship.

Conclusions: Despite non-significant results, power-analysis suggests current sample size is insufficient to pick up this suggested modest effect. No large effect of cultural background on social norms or psychotic experiences was found, but a modest effect can not be ruled out. Unlike previous findings in ToM and emotion recognition, cultural bias did not significantly influence social norms or their relationship with psychotic experiences in this sample.