The Doubt Syndrome: An Intercultural Regulatory Mechanism

This preprint presents a conceptual analysis of the Doubt Syndrome as an intercultural regulatory mechanism operating within high-context institutional environments commonly found in East Asia. Drawing on established scholarship in intercultural communication, organizational analysis, and Confucian-influenced governance traditions, the paper examines how sustained ambiguity, indirect feedback, and non-explicit evaluation may function as forms of indirect regulation for professionals who lack full access to contextual norms. Rather than attributing intent, exclusion, or institutional dysfunction, the analysis emphasizes emergent interactional effects arising from asymmetrical interpretive access between culturally embedded insiders and foreign professionals. The Doubt Syndrome is proposed as a meso-level analytical framework linking macro-cultural norms with micro-level professional experience, offering a vocabulary for understanding persistent uncertainty, heightened self-monitoring, and behavioral caution without moral judgment or cultural attribution. The paper is conceptual in scope and does not present empirical data. Its purpose is explanatory rather than evaluative, and it is intended to support future qualitative, comparative, and organizational research on intercultural interaction in high-context settings.