Culture gives meaning to experiences such as pain. Cultural differences in pain affects the way it is expressed and also affects our attitudes toward the use of pain medication. Individuals turn to their social environment for validation and comparison of pain. Pain behavioral responses are culturally learned and culturally specific. Culture promotes different values, just as each individual holds certain values.
Values influence our everyday behaviors.
Nearly everything we do reflects our values on some level. Values are the things we hold as important. American culture currently values such things as money, freedom, independence, privacy, health and fitness, and physical appearance. Understanding people's values is the key to understanding their behavior, for our behavior generally reflects our values. Because different cultures promote different values, there is sometimes conflicts between the values of the health care culture and that of the patient population.