Objectives: Traditional cultural connection is an established protective factor in American Indian (AI) health research. Measurement of traditional cultural connection is primarily survey-based, limiting the ability to delineate underlying processes that may be important for advancing culturally grounded mental health prevention and intervention efforts. This study aimed to establish and validate a stimulus set to probe cultural identity and provide a framework for similar development in diverse cultures.
Methods: The sample included 194 self-identified AI participants to view cultural and comparison stimuli across three media types (i.e., audio, video, and pictures). Participants rated each stimulus for arousal, valence, identity relevance, and cultural typicality.
Results: Findings showed cultural stimuli consistently evoked higher responses across media type and domain of reactivity than comparison stimuli (ps < .001, ds = 0.30-2.37). Identity ratings for cultural stimuli across all media types were directly correlated with self-report assessments of AI spirituality and enculturation (rs = 0.22-0.40, ps < .002) as well as inversely associated with acculturation (rs = -0.35 to -0.49, ps < .001).
Conclusions: These findings underline the potential of the devised stimulus set to effectively measure cultural connection in a heterogeneous AI population and offer a framework for broad cross-cultural application in future research. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).