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Examining U.S. and Japanese College Students’ Differences in Psychological Distress: the Mediating Roles of Valued Action and Experiential Avoidance

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Abstract

Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) is a counseling modality that features values clarification interventions. However, a well-established ACT-consistent measure of values for practitioners and researchers is lacking. The present study, therefore, examined an exploratory measure called the Valued Time and Difficulty Questionnaire (VTDQ; Wilson et al. 2010) and investigated the possible explanatory role of multiple ACT constructs on psychological distress. Obtained cross-national differences with a sample of 188 U.S. and 223 Japanese students were consistent with previous research. Moreover, a multiple mediator model revealed significant indirect effects of VTDQ subscale scores for time and difficulty on the association between culture and symptoms.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of South Carolina Aiken, Aiken, SC, USA

    Chad E. Drake

  2. Department of Psychology, Southern Illinois University, Mail Code 6502, Carbondale, IL, 62901, USA

    Chad E. Drake

  3. University of Hawaii-Mānoa, Honolulu, HI, USA

    Akihiko Masuda

  4. Kyoto University, Kyoto, Japan

    David Dalsky

  5. Southern Illinois University, Carbondale, IL, USA

    Kimberly T. Stevens, Sam Kramer & Sunni J. Primeaux

  6. Doshisha University, Kyoto, Japan

    Takashi Muto

  7. Ritsumeikan University, Kyoto, Japan

    Takashi Mitamura

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  1. Chad E. Drake
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  2. Akihiko Masuda
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  4. Kimberly T. Stevens
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  6. Sunni J. Primeaux
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  7. Takashi Muto
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  8. Takashi Mitamura
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Correspondence to Chad E. Drake.

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All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.

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Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.

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Drake, C.E., Masuda, A., Dalsky, D. et al. Examining U.S. and Japanese College Students’ Differences in Psychological Distress: the Mediating Roles of Valued Action and Experiential Avoidance. Int J Adv Counselling 41, 25–40 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10447-018-9342-2

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