Psychological inflexibility and depressive symptoms among Asian English speakers: A study on Indian, Philippine, and Singaporean samples

Abstract Psychological inflexibility is a core concept in Acceptance and Commitment Therapy. The primary aim of this study was to examine psychological inflexibility and depressive symptoms among Asian English speakers. A total of 900 adults in India, the Philippines, and Singapore completed some measures related to psychological inflexibility and depressive symptoms through a Web-based survey. Multiple regression analyses revealed that higher psychological inflexibility was significantly associated with higher levels of depressive symptoms in all the samples, after controlling for the effects of gender, marital status, and interpersonal stress. In addition, the effect sizes of the changes in the R2 values when only psychological flexibility scores were entered in the regression model were large for all the samples. Moreover, overall, the beta-weight of the psychological flexibility scores obtained by the Philippine sample was the lowest of all three samples.