Cultural Influences on Emotion: Established Patterns and Emerging Trends
(2016) Handbook of Cultural Psychology — accepted/in-press
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- Over the last decade, significant empirical research has examined the influence of culture on a variety of emotion and affective processes. In this chapter, we review three established empirical differences in emotion between Western and East Asian cultures that stem from independent vs. interdependent models of self. These patterns concern the: (1) focus of emotion, (2) value placed on emotional expression vs. suppression, and (3) value placed on experiencing positive (vs. negative) affective states and on high vs. low arousal positive states. This work reveals that many assumptions about emotion that stem from Western views of emotion are less applicable to East Asian contexts. We discuss real world applications of these differences to illustrate the practical importance of considering cultural differences in emotion for health, business, and other applied settings. We end with a description of some emerging trends in the culture and emotion literature, which broaden existing research by including different independent and different interdependent contexts; examining interactions with age, gender, and social class; studying acculturative processes; comparing different religions; exploring other cultural constructs; and using neuroimaging and genetic methods. Together, this research reveals the myriad ways in which culture shapes emotional life.
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Tsai, J. L., & Clobert, M. (2016). Cultural Influences on Emotion: Established Patterns and Emerging Trends. In Shinobu Kitayama & Dov Cohen (ed.), Handbook of Cultural Psychology. Guilford Press. https://hdl.handle.net/2078.5/81680