A Cultural Perspective on Functional Limitations and Well-Being

Functional limitations-difficulty in carrying out activities of daily living-have been linked to poorer well-being in Western cultures. This might be partly due to the lower personal control associated with functional limitations. However, compared with the West, in Asian cultural contexts (e.g., Japan) where agency and control are based less predominantly on individual attributes, the link between functional limitations and well-being may be weaker. Using cross-sectional probability samples from the United States and Japan (Study 1), functional limitations were associated with lower well-being in both cultures, though the association was weaker in Japan than in the United States and personal control played a mediating role. Furthermore, analyses of longitudinal data (Study 2) showed the cross-cultural patterns generally consistent with the cross-sectional analyses of Study 1, though the cultural moderation was found for fewer well-being measures. Such findings enrich our understanding of how health status and well-being are related across cultures.