How Does Our Cultural Background Influence Our Feelings And Emotions

Affiliate 15. Culture

15.2 Culture and Emotion

Jeanne Tsai

How practice people's cultural ideas and practices shape their emotions (and other types of feelings)? In this module, nosotros volition discuss findings from studies comparing North American (United States, Canada) and Due east Asian (Chinese, Japanese, Korean) contexts. These studies reveal both cultural similarities and differences in various aspects of emotional life. Throughout, we will highlight the scientific and practical importance of these findings and conclude with recommendations for futurity research.

Learning Objectives

1. Review the history of cross-cultural studies of emotion
2. Learn nearly recent empirical findings and theories of culture and emotion
3. Understand why cultural differences in emotion matter
4. Explore current and hereafter directions in culture and emotion research

Take a moment and imagine you are traveling in a country you've never been to earlier. Everything—the sights, the smells, the sounds—seems foreign. People are speaking a language you don't empathise and wearing clothes dissimilar yours. Simply they greet you with a smiling and y'all sense that, despite the differences you observe, deep downwards inside these people have the same feelings as you. Merely is this true? Do people from opposite ends of the world really feel the aforementioned emotions? While nearly scholars concord that members of dissimilar cultures may vary in the foods they consume, the languages they speak, and the holidays they celebrate, there is disagreement about the extent to which culture shapes people's emotions and feelings—including what people feel, what they limited, and what they do during an emotional event. Understanding how civilization shapes people's emotional lives and what bear on emotion has on psychological health and well-existence in unlike cultures will non but advance the written report of human behavior only will as well benefit multicultural societies. Across a variety of settings—bookish, business organization, medical—people worldwide are coming into more than contact with people from foreign cultures. In society to communicate and office effectively in such situations, we must understand the ways cultural ideas and practices shape our emotions.

Historical Groundwork

In the 1950s and 1960s, social scientists tended to autumn into either one of two camps. Theuniversalist camp claimed that, despite cultural differences in community and traditions, at a fundamental level all humans experience similarly. These universalists believed that emotions evolved as a response to the environments of our primordial ancestors, so they are the aforementioned across all cultures. Indeed, people often draw their emotions every bit "automatic," "natural," "physiological," and "instinctual," supporting the view that emotions are hard-wired and universal.

Effigy 15.iv Universalists point to our prehistoric ancestors as the source of emotions that all humans share.

The social constructivist campsite, however, claimed that despite a mutual evolutionary heritage, different groups of humans evolved to adapt to their distinctive environments. And because human being environments vary so widely, people'southward emotions are also culturally variable. For instance, Lutz (1988) argued that many Western views of emotion assume that emotions are "atypical events situated within individuals." Even so, people from Ifaluk (a small island near Micronesia) view emotions as "exchanges between individuals" (p. 212). Social constructivists contended that because cultural ideas and practices are all-encompassing, people are often unaware of how their feelings are shaped by their civilization. Therefore emotions can feel automatic, natural, physiological, and instinctual, and withal still be primarily culturally shaped.

In the 1970s, Paul Ekman conducted one of the first scientific studies to address the universalist–social constructivist debate. He and Wallace Friesen devised a system to measure people'due south facial muscle activeness, called the Facial Action Coding Organisation (FACS; Ekman & Friesen, 1978). Using FACS, Ekman and Friesen analyzed people'southward facial expressions and identified specific facial muscle configurations associated with specific emotions, such as happiness, anger, sadness, fear, cloy. Ekman and Friesen then took photos of people posing with these different expressions (Figure 15.5). With the help of colleagues at different universities around the earth, Ekman and Friesen showed these pictures to members of vastly different cultures, gave them a list of emotion words (translated into the relevant languages), and asked them to lucifer the facial expressions in the photos with their corresponding emotion words on the list (Ekman & Friesen, 1971; Ekman et al., 1987).

Across cultures, participants "recognized" the emotional facial expressions, matching each movie with its "correct" emotion discussion at levels greater than chance. This led Ekman and his colleagues to conclude that there are universally recognized emotional facial expressions. At the same time, though, they found considerable variability across cultures in recognition rates. For instance, whereas 95% of U.S. participants associated a grinning with "happiness," only 69% of Sumatran participants did. Similarly, 86% of U.S. participants associated wrinkling of the nose with "disgust," but merely lx% of Japanese did (Ekman et al., 1987). Ekman and colleagues interpreted this variation as demonstrating cultural differences in "display rules," or rules most what emotions are appropriate to show in a given situation (Ekman, 1972). Indeed, since this initial work, Matsumoto and his colleagues have demonstrated widespread cultural differences in display rules (Safdar et al., 2009). One prominent example of such differences is biting 1's natural language. In India, this signals embarrassment; nevertheless, in the U.South. this expression has no such meaning (Haidt & Keltner, 1999).

Figure fifteen.five Facial expressions associated with happiness, sadness, disgust, and acrimony based on the Facial Activeness Coding Arrangement. [Image: Paul Eckman, used with permission]

These findings suggest both cultural similarities and differences in the recognition of emotional facial expressions (although see Russell, 1994, for criticism of this piece of work). Interestingly, since the mid-2000s, increasing research has demonstrated cultural differences non only in brandish rules, but also the degree to which people focus on the face (versus other aspects of the social context; Masuda, Ellsworth, Mesquita, Leu, Tanida, & Van de Veerdonk, 2008), and on different features of the face up (Yuki, Maddux, & Matsuda, 2007) when perceiving others' emotions. For case, people from the Us tend to focus on the oral fissure when interpreting others' emotions, whereas people from Japan tend to focus on the optics.

Just how does civilisation shape other aspects of emotional life—such as how people emotionally respond to different situations, how they want to feel generally, and what makes them happy? Today, most scholars agree that emotions and other related states are multifaceted, and that cultural similarities and differences exist for each facet. Thus, rather than classifying emotions aseither universalor socially-constructed, scholars are now attempting to identify the specific similarities and differences of emotional life across cultures. These endeavors are yielding new insights into the effects of cultural on emotion.

Current and Research Theory

Given the wide range of cultures and facets of emotion in the globe, for the remainder of the module nosotros will limit our telescopic to the two cultural contexts that have received the most empirical attending by social scientists: North America (The states, Canada) and Eastern asia (China, Japan, and Korea). Social scientists have focused on N American and East Asian contexts because they differ in obvious ways, including their geographical locations, histories, languages, and religions. Moreover, since the 1980s large-scale studies take revealed that North American and East Asian contexts differ in their overall values and attitudes, such as the prioritization of personal vs. group needs (individualism vs. collectivism; Hofstede, 2001). Whereas North American contexts encourage members to prioritize personal over grouping needs (to exist "individualistic"), East Asian contexts encourage members to prioritize grouping over personal needs (to be "collectivistic").

Cultural Models of Cocky in North American and East Asian Contexts

In a landmark paper, cultural psychologists Markus and Kitayama (1991) proposed that previously observed differences in individualism and collectivism translated into unlike models of the self—or one's personal concept of who southward/he is every bit a person. Specifically, the researchers argued that in North American contexts, the ascendant model of the self is an contained one, in which beingness a person ways being distinct from others and behaving appropriately across situations. In East Asian contexts, withal, the ascendant model of the self is an interdependent i, in which existence a person means being fundamentally connected to others and being responsive to situational demands. For example, in a archetype study (Cousins, 1989), American and Japanese students were administered the Twenty Statements Test, in which they were asked to complete the judgement stem, "I am ______," xx times. U.Southward. participants were more than likely than Japanese participants to complete the stalk with psychological attributes (due east.g., friendly, cheerful); Japanese participants, on the other manus, were more probable to complete the stem with references to social roles and responsibilities (e.1000., a daughter, a educatee) (Cousins, 1989). These dissimilar models of the cocky event in different principles for interacting with others. An independent model of self teaches people to express themselves and attempt to influence others (i.e., modify their environments to be consistent with their own beliefs and desires). In contrast, an interdependent model of cocky teaches people to suppress their own beliefs and desires and arrange to others' (i.east., fit in with their environment) (Heine, Lehman, Markus, & Kitayama, 1999; Morling, Kitayama, & Miyamoto, 2002; Weisz, Rothbaum, & Blackburn, 1984). Markus and Kitayama (1991) fence that these different models of self have meaning implications for how people in Western and East Asian contexts feel.

Cultural Similarities and Differences in Emotion: Comparisons of North American and Due east Asian Contexts

A considerable body of empirical enquiry suggests that these different models of self shape various aspects of emotional dynamics. Next we volition discuss several means culture shapes emotion, starting with emotional response.

People's Physiological Responses to Emotional Events Are Like Across Cultures, merely Civilization Influences People's Facial Expressive Behavior

Figure fifteen.6 Although study participants from different cultural backgrounds reported like emotions and levels of intensity when recalling of import episodes in their lives, there were significant differences in facial expressions in response to those emotions.

How does civilisation influence people's responses to emotional events? Studies of emotional response tend to focus on 3 components: physiology (e.grand., how fast one's middle beats), subjective experience (e.g., feeling intensely happy or sad), and facial expressive beliefs (e.grand., smiling or frowning). Although only a few studies have simultaneously measured these different aspects of emotional response, those that do tend to detect more similarities than differences in physiological responses between cultures. That is, regardless of culture, people tend to respond similarly in terms of physiological (or actual) expression. For example, in ane study, European American and Hmong (pronounced "muhng") American participants were asked to relive various emotional episodes in their lives (e.1000., when they lost something or someone they loved; when something good happened) (Tsai, Chentsova-Dutton, Freire-Bebeau, & Przymus, 2002). At the level of physiological arousal (e.g., heart rate), in that location were no differences in how the participants responded. Yet, their facial expressive beliefs told a unlike story. When reliving events that elicited happiness, pride, and love, European Americans smiled more often and more intensely than did their Hmong counterparts—though all participants reported feeling happy, proud, and in love at similar levels of intensity. And similar patterns accept emerged in studies comparing European Americans with Chinese Americans during different emotion-eliciting tasks (Tsai et al., 2002; Tsai, Levenson, & McCoy, 2006; Tsai, Levenson, & Carstensen, 2000). Thus, while the physiological aspects of emotional responses appear to exist similar across cultures, their accompanying facial expressions are more than culturally distinctive.

Once again, these differences in facial expressions during positive emotional events are consistent with findings from cross-cultural studies ofdisplay rules, and stem from the models of cocky-description discussed above: In North American contexts that promote anindependent self, individuals tend to express their emotions to influence others. Conversely, in East Asian contexts that promote an interdependent self, individuals tend to control and suppress their emotions to arrange to others.

People Suppress Their Emotions Across Cultures, but Culture Influences the Consequences of Suppression for Psychological Well-Being

If the cultural platonic in North American contexts is to express oneself, and then suppressing emotions (not showing how one feels) should have negative consequences. This is the assumption underlying hydraulic models of emotion: the idea that emotional suppression and repression impair psychological performance (Freud, 1910). Indeed, significant empirical research shows that suppressing emotions tin have negative consequences for psychological well-being in North American contexts (Gross, 1998). However, Soto and colleagues (2011) find that the human relationship between suppression and psychological well-being varies by culture. Truthful, with European Americans, emotional suppression is associated with higher levels of low and lower levels of life satisfaction. (Remember, in these individualistic societies, the expression of emotion is a primal aspect of positive interactions with others.) On the other manus, since for Hong Kong Chinese, emotional suppression is needed to adjust to others (in this interdependent customs, suppressing emotions is how to accordingly collaborate with others), it is simply a part of normal life and therefore not associated with depression or life satisfaction.

These findings are consistent with research suggesting that factors related to clinical depression vary between European Americans and Asian Americans. European Americans diagnosed with depression show dampened or muted emotional responses (Bylsma, Morris, & Rottenberg, 2008). For instance, when shown sad or amusing moving-picture show clips, depressed European Americans reply less intensely than their nondepressed counterparts.However, other studies have shown that depressed East Asian Americans (i.e., people of East Asian descent who alive in the U.s.) demonstratesimilar or increased emotional responses compared with their nondepressed counterparts (Chentsova-Dutton et al., 2007; Chentsova-Dutton, Tsai, & Gotlib, 2010). In other words, depressed European Americans evidence reduced emotional expressions, but depressed East Asian Americans donot—and, in fact, may expressmore emotion. Thus, muted responses (which resemble suppression) are associated with low in European American contexts, but not in Due east Asian contexts.

People Feel Expert During Positive Events, but Civilisation Influences Whether People Experience Bad During Positive Events

Figure fifteen.7 Someone from a collectivist civilisation is more likely to think about how their own accomplishments might impact others. An otherwise positive accomplishment for i person could cause another to feel something negative, with mixed emotions as the result.

What nigh people'due south subjective emotional experiences? Do people beyond culturesfeel the same emotions in similar situations, despite how they show them? Contempo studies betoken that culture affects whether people are probable to feel bad during expert events. In North American contexts, people rarely experience bad later expert experiences. Withal, a number of inquiry teams take observed that, compared with people in North American contexts, people in East Asian contexts are more likely to feel badand expert ("mixed" emotions) during positive events (e.m., feeling worried after winning an important contest; Miyamoto, Uchida, & Ellsworth, 2010). This may be because, compared with North Americans, East Asians appoint in more than dialectical thinking (i.e., they are more tolerant of contradiction and change). Therefore, they accept that positive and negative feelings can occur simultaneously. In add-on, whereas North Americans value maximizing positive states and minimizing negative ones, Eastward Asians value a greater balance betwixt the 2 (Sims, Tsai, Wang, Fung, & Zhang, 2013). To better sympathize this, think almost how yous would feel after getting the top score on a exam that'southward graded on a curve. In North American contexts, such success is considered an individual achievement and worth celebrating. Just what about the other students who volition now receive a lower grade because you "raised the bend" with your good grade? In East Asian contexts, not only would students be more than thoughtful of the overall group's success, merely they would besides be more comfortable acknowledging both the positive (their own success on the test) and the negative (their classmates' lower grades).

Over again, these differences tin can be linked to cultural differences in models of the self. An interdependent model encourages people to call back virtually how their accomplishments might touch on others (e.g., make others feel bad or jealous). Thus, awareness of negative emotions during positive events may discourage people from expressing their excitement and standing out (as in East Asian contexts). Such emotional suppression helps individuals feel in sync with those around them. An independent model, nonetheless, encourages people to limited themselves and stand out, so when something adept happens, they take no reason to feel bad.

So far, we have reviewed research that demonstrates cultural similarities in physiological responses and in the ability to suppress emotions. We take as well discussed the cultural differences in facial expressive behavior and the likelihood of experiencing negative feelings during positive events. Next, we will explore how culture shapes people's ideal or desired states.

People Want to Feel Good Across Cultures, just Culture Influences the Specific Practiced States People Desire to Feel (Their "Ideal Affect")

Everyone welcomes positive feelings, simply cultures vary in the specific types ofpositive affective states (see Effigy 15.eight) their people favor. An affective state is essentially the blazon of emotional arousal i feels coupled with its intensity—which can vary from pleasant to unpleasant (east.1000., happy to pitiful), with high to low arousal (east.grand., energetic to passive). Although people of all cultures experience this range of affective states, they can vary in their preferences for each. For example, people in North American contexts lean toward feeling excited, enthusiastic, energetic, and other "high arousal positive" states. People in East Asian contexts, however, generally prefer feeling calm, peaceful, and other "depression arousal positive" states (Tsai, Knutson, & Fung, 2006). These cultural differences have been observed in immature children between the ages of 3 and 5, higher students, and adults betwixt the ages of 60 and 80 (Tsai, Louie, Chen, & Uchida, 2007; Tsai, Sims, Thomas, & Fung, 2013), and are reflected in widely-distributed cultural products. For example, wherever you look in American contexts—women'south magazines, children's storybooks, company websites, and even Facebook profiles (Figure 3)—yous will find more than open, excited smiles and fewer closed, calm smiles compared to Chinese contexts (Chim, Moon, Ang, Tsai, 2013; Tsai, 2007; Tsai, Louie, et al., 2007).

Effigy 15.8 Adapted from Feldman, Barrett, and Russell (1999); Larsen and Diener ((1992); Russell (1991); Thayer (1989); Watson and Tellegen (1985)

Again, these differences in ideal touch on (i.due east., the emotional states that people believe are all-time) represent to the independent and interdependent models described earlier: Independent selves want to influence others, which requires action (doingsomething), and activeness involves high arousal states. Conversely, interdependent selves want to adjust to others, which requiressuspending action and attending to others—both of which involve low arousal states. Thus, the more that individuals and cultures want to influence others (as in North American contexts), the more they value excitement, enthusiasm, and other high arousal positive states. And, the more that individuals and cultures desire to adjust to others (equally in East Asian contexts), the more they value calm, peacefulness, and other low arousal positive states (Tsai, Miao, Seppala, Fung, & Yeung, 2007).

Figure xv.9 Sample Hong Kong Chinese (left) and European American (right) Facebook pages.

Because one'due south ideal touch on functions as a guide for beliefs and a manner of evaluating one's emotional states, cultural differences in ideal bear on can consequence in different emotional lives. For instance, several studies have shown that people engage in activities (eastward.g., recreational pastimes, musical styles) consistent with their cultural platonic affect. That is, people from North American contexts (who value high arousal affective states) tend to prefer thrilling activities like skydiving, whereas people from E Asian contexts (who value low arousal melancholia states) prefer tranquil activities similar lounging on the embankment (Tsai, 2007). In improver, people base their conceptions of well-being and happiness on their ideal touch. Therefore, European Americans are more probable to define well-existence in terms of excitement, whereas Hong Kong Chinese are more likely to define well-being in terms of calmness. Indeed, among European Americans, the less people feelhigh arousal positive states, the more depressed they are. But, amidst Hong Kong Chinese—you guessed information technology!—the less people experiencedepression arousal positive states, the more than depressed they are (Tsai, Knutson, & Fung, 2006).

People Base of operations Their Happiness on Similar Factors Beyond Cultures, simply Culture Influences the Weight Placed on Each Gene

Figure 15.10 Research has shown that self-esteem is more highly correlated with life satisfaction in individualistic cultures than in collectivist cultures.

What factors make people happy or satisfied with their lives? We have seen that discrepancies betwixt how people actually feel (actual affect) and how they want to feel (ideal touch on)—as well equally people'south suppression of their ideal affect—are associated with depression. Only happiness is based on other factors too. For instance, Kwan, Bail, & Singelis (1997) found that while European Americans and Hong Kong Chinese subjects both based life satisfaction on how they felt about themselves (self-esteem) and their relationships (relationship harmony), their weighting of each factor was different. That is, European Americans based their life satisfaction primarily on cocky-esteem, whereas Hong Kong Chinese based their life satisfaction equally on self-esteemand human relationship harmony. Consistent with these findings, Oishi and colleagues (1999) institute in a report of 39 nations that self-esteem was more strongly correlated with life satisfaction in more individualistic nations compared to more collectivistic ones. Researchers too plant that in individualistic cultures people rated life satisfaction based on their emotions more and then than on social definitions (or norms). In other words, rather than using social norms as a guideline for what constitutes an ideal life, people in individualistic cultures tend to evaluate their satisfaction according to how they experience emotionally. In collectivistic cultures, however, people's life satisfaction tends to be based on a balance between their emotions and norms (Suh, Diener, Oishi, & Triandis, 1998). Similarly, other researchers have recently found that people in North American contexts are more likely to feel negative when they have poor mental and concrete health, while people in Japanese contexts don't have this clan (Curhan et al., 2013).

Again, these findings are consistent with cultural differences in models of the self. In North American, independent contexts, feelings about the cocky matter more, whereas in Due east Asian, interdependent contexts, feelings about others matter equally much equally or even more than feelings about the self.

Why Do Cultural Similarities And Differences In Emotion Affair?

Agreement cultural similarities and differences in emotion is obviously disquisitional to understanding emotions in general, and the flexibility of emotional processes more specifically. Given the key office that emotions play in our interaction, understanding cultural similarities and differences is especially critical to preventing potentially harmful miscommunications. Although misunderstandings are unintentional, they can outcome in negative consequences—as we've seen historically for ethnic minorities in many cultures. For instance, across a multifariousness of North American settings, Asian Americans are often characterized as too "quiet" and "reserved," and these depression arousal states are often misinterpreted as expressions of disengagement or boredom—rather than expressions of the ideal of calmness. Consequently, Asian Americans may be perceived as "cold," "stoic," and "unfriendly," fostering stereotypes of Asian Americans as "perpetual foreigners" (Cheryan & Monin, 2005). Indeed, this may exist one reason Asian Americans are often overlooked for top leadership positions (Hyun, 2005).

In addition to averting cultural miscommunications, recognizing cultural similarities and differences in emotion may provide insights into other paths to psychological health and well-existence. For instance, findings from a contempo series of studies advise that at-home states are easier to arm-twist than excited states, suggesting that i mode of increasing happiness in cultures that value excitement may exist to increment the value placed on at-home states (Chim, Tsai, Hogan, & Fung, 2013).

Current Directions In Civilization And Emotion Inquiry

What About Other Cultures?

In this brief review, we've focused primarily on comparisons between North American and East Asian contexts considering most of the enquiry in cultural psychology has focused on these comparisons. Yet, there are obviously a multitude of other cultural contexts in which emotional differences likely be. For instance, although Western contexts are like in many ways, specific Western contexts (e.grand., American vs. German) besides differ from each other in noun ways related to emotion (Koopmann-Holm & Matsumoto, 2011). Thus, future research examining other cultural contexts is needed. Such studies may also reveal additional, uninvestigated dimensions or models that have wide implications for emotion. In improver, because more than and more people are being raised within multiple cultural contexts (due east.g., for many Chinese Americans, a Chinese immigrant culture at domicile and mainstream American civilization at school), more research is needed to examine how people negotiate and integrate these unlike cultures in their emotional lives (for examples, run across De Leersnyder, Mesquita, & Kim, 2011; Perunovic, Heller, & Rafaeli, 2007).

How Are Cultural Differences in Beliefs Well-nigh Emotion Transmitted?

Effigy 15.xi Children'southward story books offer one interesting and effective way to written report how early on influences tin affect a person's platonic bear upon.

According to Kroeber and Kluckhohn (1952), cultural ideas are reflected in and reinforced past practices, institutions, and products. Every bit an example of this phenomenon—and illustrating the point regarding cultural differences in ideal touch—bestselling children'southward storybooks in the United States oft contain more than exciting and less calm content (smiles and activities) than practice bestselling children's storybooks in Taiwan (Tsai, Louie, et al., 2007). To investigate this further, the researchers randomly assigned European American, Asian American, and Taiwanese Chinese preschoolers to be read either stories with heady content or stories with calm content. Across all of these cultures, the kids who were read stories with exciting content were afterward more probable to value excited states, whereas those who were read stories with calm content were more likely to value calm states. As a test, after hearing the stories, the kids were shown a list of toys and asked to select their favorites. Those who heard the exciting stories wanted to play with more arousing toys (like a drum that beats loud and fast), whereas those who heard the calm stories wanted to play with less arousing toys (like a drum that beats quiet and slow). These findings suggest that regardless of ethnic background, direct exposure to storybook content alters children's ideal affect. More studies are needed to appraise whether a similar process occurs when children and adults are chronically exposed to diverse types of cultural products. Too, future studies should examine other means cultural ideas regarding emotion are transmitted (east.g., via interactions with parents and teachers).

Could These Cultural Differences Be Due to Temperament?

An alternative explanation for cultural differences in emotion is that they are due to temperamental factors—that is, biological predispositions to respond in certain means. (Might European Americans just be more emotional than E Asians because of genetics?) Indeed, about models of emotion admit that both cultureandtemperament play roles in emotional life, however few if any models indicate how. Nevertheless, nigh researchers believe that despite genetic differences in founder populations (i.e., the migrants from a population who leave to create their ain societies), culture has a greater impact on emotions. For instance, one theoretical framework, Affect Valuation Theory, proposes that cultural factors shape how people want to feel ("platonic bear upon") more how they actually feel ("actual affect"); conversely, temperamental factors influence how people really feel more than how they desire to feel (Tsai, 2007) (see Figure 15.12).

To test this hypothesis, European American, Asian American, and Hong Kong Chinese participants completed measures of temperament (i.due east., stable dispositions, such as neuroticism or extraversion), actual affect (i.due east., how people actually feel in given situations), ideal touch on (i.east., how people would like to feel in given situations), and influential cultural values (i.e., personal beliefs transmitted through culture). When researchers analyzed the participants' responses, they found that differences in ideal impact between cultures were associated more with cultural factors than with temperamental factors (Tsai, Knutson, & Fung, 2006). Nonetheless, when researchers examined bodily impact, they found this to be reversed: bodily affect was more strongly associated with temperamental factors than cultural factors. Not all of the studies described above take ruled out a temperamental explanation, though, and more studies are needed to rule out the possibility that the observed grouping differences are due to genetic factors instead of, or in addition to, cultural factors. Moreover, time to come studies should examine whether the links between temperament and emotions might vary across cultures, and how cultural and temperamental factors piece of work together to shape emotion.

Effigy 15.12 Affect valuation theory. Thicker lines indicate stronger predicted relationships.

Summary

Based on studies comparing North American and East Asian contexts, there is clear evidence for cultural similarities and differences in emotions, and about of the differences can be traced to unlike cultural models of the self.

Consider your own concept of self for a moment. What kinds of pastimes exercise you adopt—activities that make you excited, or ones that make you lot calm? What kinds of feelings do y'all strive for? What is your ideal affect? Because emotions seem and feel and so instinctual to us, it'due south difficult to imagine that the way we experience them and the ones we desire are annihilation other than biologically programmed into u.s.. However, every bit current inquiry has shown (and as future enquiry will proceed to explore), there are myriad means in which civilisation, both consciously and unconsciously, shapes people's emotional lives.

Outside Resources

Audio Interview: The Really Large Questions "What Are Emotions?" Interview with Paul Ekman, Martha Nussbaum, Dominique Moisi, and William Reddy http://www.trbq.org/alphabetize.php?option=com_content&view=category&layout=blog&id=16&Itemid=43

Book: Ed Diener and Robert Biswas-Diener:Happiness: Unlocking the Mysteries of Psychological Wealth

Book: Eric Weiner:The Geography of Bliss

Volume: Eva Hoffmann:Lost in Translation: Life in a New Language

Volume: Hazel Markus:Clash: 8 Cultural Conflicts That Make The states Who Nosotros Are

Video: Social Psychology Alive http://psychology.stanford.edu/~tsailab/PDF/socpsychalive.wmv

Video: The Really Big Questions "Civilisation and Emotion," Dr. Jeanne Tsai

Video: Tsai's description of cultural differences in emotion

Web: Acculturation and Civilization Collaborative at Leuven http://ppw.kuleuven.be/home/english/research/cscp/acc-research

Web: Civilization and Noesis at the University of Michigan http://culturecognition.isr.umich.edu/

Web: Experts In Emotion Series, Dr. June Gruber, Section of Psychology, Yale University http://www.yalepeplab.com/teaching/psych131_summer2013/expertseries.php

Web: Georgetown Culture and Emotion Lab http://georgetownculturelab.wordpress.com/

Web: Paul Ekman's website http://www.paulekman.com

Web: Penn State Civilization, Health, and Emotion Lab http://world wide web.personal.psu.edu/users/m/r/mrm280/sotosite/

Web: Stanford Culture and Emotion Lab http://www-psych.stanford.edu/~tsailab/index.htm

Web: Wesleyan Culture and Emotion Lab http://civilisation-and-emotion.research.wesleyan.edu/

Discussion Questions

1. What cultural ideas and practices related to emotion were you exposed to when you were a child? What cultural ideas and practices related to emotion are you lot currently exposed to as an adult? How practise you think they shape your emotional experiences and expressions?
2. How can researchers avert inserting their own beliefs about emotion in their research?
3. Virtually of the studies described above are based on cocky-report measures. What are some of the advantages and disadvantages of using self-report measures to understand the cultural shaping of emotion? How might the use of other behavioral methods (e.g., neuroimaging) address some of these limitations?
4. Do the empirical findings described to a higher place change your beliefs about emotion? How?
5. Imagine you are a director of a big American company that is beginning to practise work in Red china and Japan. How volition you lot employ your electric current noesis near culture and emotion to forbid misunderstandings betwixt you and your Chinese and Japanese employees?

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Paradigm Attributions

Figure xv.4: Stefan Sheer, https://goo.gl/x56mw9, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://goo.gl/tCiqlm

Figure 15.6: Andrew Sweeney, https://goo.gl/Npc7Wm, CC Past-NC-SA 4.0, https://goo.gl/H2QaA8

Figure fifteen.vii: lian xiaoxiao, https://goo.gl/js5jDw, CC Past-SA ii.0, https://goo.gl/jSSrcO

Effigy 15.10: Erik, https://goo.gl/N8zccv, CC By-NC-SA 2.0, https://goo.gl/Toc0ZF

Effigy 15.11: Vernon Barford Schoolhouse Library, https://goo.gl/fghcae, CC By-NC-SA ii.0, https://goo.gl/Toc0ZF

References

Bylsma, L., Morris, B., & Rottenberg, J. (2008). A meta-analysis of emotional reactivity in major depressive disorder.Clinical Psychology Review, 28(4), 676–691.

Chentsova-Dutton, Y. E., Chu, J. P., Tsai, J. L., Rottenberg, J., Gross, J. J., & Gotlib, I. H. (2007). Depression and emotional reactivity: Variation amongst Asian Americans of Due east Asian descent and European Americans.Journal of Aberrant Psychology, 116(iv), 776–785.

Chentsova-Dutton, Y. E., Tsai, J. L., & Gotlib, I. (2010). Farther evidence for the cultural norm hypothesis: Positive emotion in depressed and control European American and Asian American women.Cultural Diversity and Ethnic Minority Psychology, 16, 284–295.

Cheryan, Due south., & Monin, B. (2005). Where are you really from?: Asian Americans and identity deprival.Journal of personality and social psychology, 89(5), 717–731.

Chim, L., Moon, A., Ang, J., & Tsai, J. L. (2013). Magazine ads, Facebook pages, and company websites reflect cultural differences in ideal affect. In T. Masuda (Chair).Culture and mind: Implications for art, blueprint, and ad. Symposium held at International Association for Cross-Cultural Psychology, Los Angeles, CA.

Chim, L., Tsai, J.L., Hogan, C., & Fung, H. H. (2013).Enhancing happiness by valuing at-home. Manuscript in preparation.

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How Does Our Cultural Background Influence Our Feelings And Emotions,

Source: https://openpress.usask.ca/introductiontopsychology/chapter/culture-and-emotion/

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