The religious shaping of feeling: Implications of Affect Valuation Theory

Over 80% of the world population identifies with a specific religion (Adherents. com, 2007; Central Intelligence Agency, 2011). For some individuals, this religion structures and shapes every dimension of their daily lives: what they wear, with whom they spend time, where they go, and what they eat. As important, but perhaps less overt, is how religion shapes people\u27s psyches. Indeed, one of the major functions of religion is to provide followers with a way of understanding and coping with their life circumstances (see Pargament, Falb, Ano, & Wachholtz, Chapter 28, this volume; Park, 2005). Another is to provide a guide or map for how to lead a good life (in this volume, see Donahue & Nielsen, Chapter 16, and Park, Chapter 18). A central part of coping with life and leading a good life is regulating one\u27s emotions. Indeed, several religious scholars have written about the centrality of emotion in religious experience (see Emmons, 2005a, for an excellent history of religion and emotion). For instance, ·two fundamental truths or tenets of Buddhism are that life is full of suffering, sorrow, and grief, and that the way to end this suffering is to relinquish one\u27s attachments to the material world and achieve· enlightenment (Smith, 1991). In this chapter, we explore several ways in which religion may shape people\u27s emotional lives, specifically their emotional goals, using the framework of affect valuation theory (AVT; Tsai, 2007). But first, we discuss our approach to religion

The cultural shaping of compassion

In this chapter, we first review the existing literature on cross-cultural studies on compassion. While cultural similarities exist, we demonstrate cultural differences in the conception, experience, and expression of compassion. Then we present our own work on the cultural shaping of compassion by introducing Affect Valuation Theory ( e.g., Tsai, Knutson, & Fung, 2006), our theoretical framework. We show how the desire to avoid feeling negative partly explains cultural differences in conceptualizations and expressions of compassion. Specifically, the more people want to avoid feeling negative, the more they focus on the positive (e.g., comforting memories) than the negative (e.g., the pain of someone\u27s death) when responding to others\u27 suffering, and the more they regard responses as helpful that focus on the positive (vs. negative). Finally, we discuss implications of our work for counseling, health care, and public service settings, as well as for interventions that aim to promote compassion

Why Choose Tangible Rewards over Cash? An Examination of Reward Type on Employees’ Performance in a Multidimensional Task Environment

In today’s business environment, organizations have increased the use of tangible rewards in their reward and recognition systems. The purpose of my study is to examine the extent to which tangible rewards affect performance in multidimensional task environments, especially the performance on the uncompensated task dimension. Based on economic theory and prior research on tangible rewards, I do not make an ex-ante prediction on the relative efficacy of tangible rewards and cash rewards on the compensated task dimension performance. However, I rely on affect valuation theory to predict that tangible rewards motivate a higher level of performance compared to cash rewards on the uncompensated task dimension. Using an experiment, I find that even though cash and tangible rewards motivate similar levels of performance on the compensated task dimension, the uncompensated task dimension performance is higher under tangible rewards than cash rewards. Thus, my study reveals a positive effect of tangible rewards in multidimensional task environments. The findings of my study provide meaningful insights that can help firms make more informed decisions when designing their performance management and reward systems for multidimensional tasks

Asian Americans respond less favorably to excitement (vs. calm)-focused physicians compared to European Americans

OBJECTIVES: Despite being considered a model minority, Asian Americans report worse health care encounters than do European Americans. This may be due to affective mismatches between Asian American patients and their European American physicians. We predicted that because Asian Americans value excitement (vs. calm) less than European Americans, they will respond less favorably to excitement-focused (vs. calm) physicians. METHOD: In Study 1, 198 European American, Chinese American, and Hong Kong Chinese community adults read a medical scenario and indicated their preference for an excitement-focused versus calm-focused physician. In Study 2, 81 European American and Asian American community college students listened to recommendations made by an excitement-focused or calm-focused physician in a video, and later attempted to recall the recommendations. In Study 3, 101 European American and Asian American middle-aged and older adults had multiple online encounters with an excitement-focused or calm-focused physician and then evaluated their physicians\u27 trustworthiness, competence, and knowledge. RESULTS: As predicted, Hong Kong Chinese preferred excitement-focused physicians less than European Americans, with Chinese Americans falling in the middle (Study 1). Similarly, Asian Americans remembered health information delivered by an excitement-focused physician less well than did European Americans (Study 2). Finally, Asian Americans evaluated an excitement-focused physician less positively than did European Americans (Study 3). CONCLUSIONS: These findings suggest that while physicians who promote and emphasize excitement states may be effective with European Americans, they may be less so with Asian Americans and other ethnic minorities who value different affective states

Focusing on the negative: Cultural differences in expressions of sympathy

Feeling concern about the suffering of others is considered a basic human response, and yet we know surprisingly little about the cultural factors that shape how people respond to the suffering of another person. To this end, we conducted 4 studies that tested the hypothesis that American expressions of sympathy focus on the negative less and positive more than German expressions of sympathy, in part because Americans want to avoid negative states more than Germans do. In Study 1, we demonstrate that American sympathy cards contain less negative and more positive content than German sympathy cards. In Study 2, we show that European Americans want to avoid negative states more than Germans do. In Study 3, we demonstrate that these cultural differences in “avoided negative affect” mediate cultural differences in how comfortable Americans and Germans feel focusing on the negative (vs. positive) when expressing sympathy for the hypothetical death of an acquaintance’s father. To examine whether greater avoided negative affect results in lesser focus on the negative and greater focus on the positive when responding to another person’s suffering, in Study 4, American and German participants were randomly assigned to 1 of 2 conditions: (a) to “push negative images away” (i.e., increasing desire to avoid negative affect) from or (b) to “pull negative images closer” (i.e., decreasing desire to avoid negative affect) to themselves. Participants were then asked to pick a card to send to an acquaintance whose father had hypothetically just died. Across cultures, participants in the “push negative away” condition were less likely to choose sympathy cards with negative (vs. positive) content than were those in the “pull negative closer” condition. Together, these studies suggest that cultures differ in their desire to avoid negative affect and that these differences influence the degree to which expressions of sympathy focus on the negative (vs. positive). We discuss the implications of these findings for current models of sympathy, compassion, and helping

Parental emotional management benefits family relationships: A randomized controlled trial in Hong Kong, China

There is a shortage of culturally appropriate, brief, preventive interventions designed to be sustainable and acceptable for community participants in nonwestern cultures. Parents’ ability to regulate their emotions is an important factor for psychological well-being of the family. In Chinese societies, emotional regulation may be more important in light of the cultural desirability of maintaining harmonious family relationships. The objectives of our randomized controlled trial were to test the effectiveness of our Effective Parenting Programme (EPP) to increase the use of emotional management strategies (primary outcome) and enhance the parent-child relationship (secondary outcome). We utilized design characteristics that promoted recruitment, retention, and intervention sustainability. We randomized a community sample of 412 Hong Kong middle- and low-income mothers of children aged 6–8 years to the EPP or attention control group. At 3, 6 and 12- month follow up, the Effective Parent Program group reported greater increases in the use of emotion management strategies during parent-child interactions, with small to medium effect size, and lower negative affect and greater positive affect, subjective happiness, satisfaction with the parent–child relationship, and family harmony, compared to the control group, with small to medium effect size. Our results provided evidence of effectiveness for a sustainable, preventive, culturally appropriate, cognitive behaviorally-based emotion management program, in a non-clinical setting for Chinese mothers.postprin

The Relationship Between Orientation to the U.S. Culture and Affect Among Chinese International Students

Emerging literature suggests that ideal/desired emotions vs. actual emotions represent an important aspect of subjective emotional experiences that may be particularly important for cross-cultural research, as culture may influence the subjective experience of how individuals value certain emotions and to what extent they actually experience them. The current research conducts two studies to examine cultural differences in ideal and actual affect, and to test its association with acculturation and depressed mood within a sample of Chinese international students. Specifically, Study 1 recruited 152 Chinese international college students and 108 U.S. college students to test differences in their ideal and actual affect, and how these differences are associated with depressed mood. Study 2 involves longitudinal data collected every six months over the course of one year to examine changes in Chinese participants\u27 affect patterns, changes in their acculturation level, and their influences on depressed mood. In addition, the study tests a moderation effect of orientation to the U.S. culture on the association between affect and depressed mood over time. Results in Study 1 showed cultural differences in ideal affect. It suggests that valuing high-arousal positive affect and wanting to feel more positive over negative effect are more functional to American culture, but higher actual low-arousal positive affect is associated with lower depressed mood for both Chinese and American cultures. Results in Study 2 showed that levels of average ideal and actual affect did not change in general across the course of a year. However, the association between affect and depressed mood become more similar to American culture when participants had stayed longer in the United States. Orientation to the U.S. culture did not moderate this association in general. Theoretical and practical implications of the results will be discussed

Personal or Interpersonal Construal of Happiness: A Cultural Psychological Perspective

Cultural psychological research reveals considerable variation in how people construe happiness and experience subjective wellbeing. This paper identified substantial cultural differences in (1) meanings of happiness, (2) predictors of happiness, and (3) how social changes such as globalization are related to happiness. In European-American cultural contexts, happiness is construed as including experience of a highly desirable and positive emotional state defined in terms of a high arousal state such as excitement and a sense of personal achievement. Moreover, individual happiness is best predicted by personal goal attainment and high self-esteem or self-efficacy. In contrast, in East Asian cultural contexts (i.e., those found in Japan), happiness is construed as including experience of both positive and negative emotional state. Happiness is defined in terms of experiencing a low arousal state such as calmness and interpersonal connectedness and harmony. Furthermore, individual happiness is best predicted by relationship harmony and emotional support from others. While people maintain traditional cultural norms, some societies and organizations are under pressure from globalization and this might affect happiness. We examined how cultural change affects wellbeing, especially focusing on current Japanese contexts where individuals have experienced an increasing shift toward individualism and have experienced a large national disaster. Cultural psychological perspectives regarding happiness provide important contributions to psychological science and society at large

Cultural Dimensions of Emotion Regulation

This review aims to evaluate the connections between emotion regulation and cultural elements via different theoretical frameworks. For this purpose, one of the most used emotion regulation models in the literature, Gross's model is briefly explained. Also, cultural elements are discussed by focusing on socialization practices, social rules, cultural scenarios, cultural values, and cultural differences highlighted in these concepts. Besides, the cultural differences in emotional expression and regulation through cultural values are presented by using two different theories and related research. The results of these research show that suppression can be adaptive and functional in different cultural contexts, and different levels of analysis can be combined to explain the processes of emotional behavior