European Americans prefer positive feelings over negative ones while Chinese tend to experience a balance between the two, new Stanford research shows.
“Culture teaches us which emotional states to value, which can in turn shape the emotions we experience,” said Stanford psychology Professor Jeanne Tsai, director of the Culture and Emotion Lab on campus. Stanford psychology postdoctoral fellow Tamara Sims was the lead author on the research paper, which was published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.
Sims noted that a number of studies by other researchers have shown that people from Chinese and other East Asian cultures are more likely to feel both negative and positive – or “mixed emotions” – during good events, such as doing well on an exam, writes Clifton B. Parker in his report.
On the other hand, Americans of European descent are more likely to just feel positive during good events. Tsai said this is explained by cultural differences in models of the “self.” Americans tend to be more individualistic and focus on standing out, whereas Chinese tend to be more collectivistic, focusing on fitting in.
According to Sims, “Although Americans know what it's like to look for the good in the bad – the silver lining – they are less likely to see the bad in the good, compared to Chinese.”
Previous research has not examined the role that emotional values play in this difference. Tsai said this new research focuses on how much people in two different cultures want to maximize positive emotions and minimize negative ones.
Multicultural implications
Tsai said that because people are often unaware of how cultural ideas and practices shape emotions, many assume that everyone wants to feel the same way.
Previous research by Tsai and Sims focused on doctor-patient connections, and the role that wanting to feel different types of positive emotions – excitement vs. calm – has on these relationships. This latest research concerns the degree to which people want to feel positive relative to negative emotions.
This subject, they suggested, has implications for other research on mixed emotions.