ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on two prominent forms of culturally afforded suffering construal–repressive construals of suffering as indicating individual deviance and the need for social order, and redemptive construals of suffering as necessary for personal growth and individuation. It discusses how variation in cultural dimensions–individualism-collectivism and the worldviews of humanism and normativism –systematically predict tendencies to rely on these construals. Two common culturally afforded interpretations arise from particular combinations of these dimensions, namely repressive suffering construals and redemptive suffering construals. Although redemptive construals are prominent in the media and psychological discourses of individualist cultures such as the United States, there remain many alternate attitudes toward suffering. Experimental existential and cultural psychology shift theoretical focus to the fluid motivational bloodlines running between the individual and the environment. Cultural belief systems such as collectivism shape perceptions of suffering, and turn these perceptions directly influence the reality of people’s experience of suffering and the societal use of suffering as a form of social control.
