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Cultural effects

A 2015 published study, "Hearing Voices in Different Cultures: A Social Kindling Hypothesis" compared the experiences of three groups of 20 participants who met the criteria for schizophrenia (n = 60) from three places, including San Mateo, California (USA), Accra, Ghana (Africa), and Chennai, India (South Asia). In this study, researchers found distinct differences among the participant's experience with voices. In the San Mateo, CA sample all but three of the participants referred to their experience of hearing voices with "diagnostic labels, and even diagnostic criteria readily", they also connected "hearing voices" with being "crazy". For the Accra, Ghana sample, almost no participants referenced a diagnosis and instead they spoke about voices as having "a spiritual meaning and as well as a psychiatric one". In the Chennai, India sample, similarly to the Ghana interviewees, most of the participants did not reference a diagnosis and for many of these participants, the voices they heard were of people they knew and people they were related to, "voices of kin". Another key finding that was identified in this research study is that "voice-hearing experience outside the West may be less harsh". Finally, researchers found that "different cultural expectations about the mind, or about the way people expect thoughts and feelings to be private or accessible to spirits or persons" could be attributed to the differences they found across the participants.