Emotions in "the world": cultural practices, products, and meanings of anger and shame in two individualist cultures.
Emotions in "the world": cultural practices, products, and meanings of anger and shame in two individualist cultures.
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DOI：
10.3389/fpsyg.2013.00867
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发表时间：
2013
影响因子：
3.8
通讯作者：
Mesquita B
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Boiger M;Deyne SD;Mesquita B
三项研究测试了这样一种观点，即人们的文化世界的结构方式能够促进和强调有助于实现其文化中心目标的情感和情感反应。基于美国人追求竞争性个人主义，而（荷兰语）比利时人则青睐更平等的个人主义变体的观点，我们预测，愤怒和羞耻及其相关反应将在这两种文化背景下不同程度地有益。一项问卷调查研究发现，文化习俗会促进有益的情绪（在美国为愤怒，在比利时为羞耻）并避免有害情绪（在美国为羞耻）：情绪互动被认为或多或少地发生，取决于它们引发了文化上有益或有害的情绪。同样，一项文化产品分析表明，美国和比利时的流行儿童读物更倾向于描绘文化上有益的情感，而不是文化上有害的情感。最后，对围绕愤怒和羞耻的共同文化含义进行的词关联研究在相关反应层面提供了相应的证据。在每种语言网络中，愤怒和羞耻都被赋予了反映情感文化意义的含义：文化上一致的情感带有相对更强的情感屈服内涵（例如，在美国屈服于愤怒和攻击罪犯），而文化上不一致的情感则带有相对更强的情感遏制内涵（例如，在美国更强调压制或转化羞耻感）。
Three studies tested the idea that people’s cultural worlds are structured in ways that promote and highlight emotions and emotional responses that are beneficial in achieving central goals in their culture. Based on the idea that U.S. Americans strive for competitive individualism, while (Dutch-speaking) Belgians favor a more egalitarian variant of individualism, we predicted that anger and shame, as well as their associated responses, would be beneficial to different extents in these two cultural contexts. A questionnaire study found that cultural practices promote beneficial emotions (anger in the United States, shame in Belgium) and avoid harmful emotions (shame in the United States): emotional interactions were perceived to occur more or less frequently to the extent that they elicited culturally beneficial or harmful emotions. Similarly, a cultural product analysis showed that popular children’s books from the United States and Belgium tend to portray culturally beneficial emotions more than culturally harmful emotions. Finally, a word-association study of the shared cultural meanings surrounding anger and shame provided commensurate evidence at the level of the associated response. In each language network, anger and shame were imbued with meanings that reflected the cultural significance of the emotion: while culturally consistent emotions carried relatively stronger connotations of emotional yielding (e.g., giving in to anger and aggressing against the offender in the United States), culturally inconsistent emotions carried relatively stronger connotations of emotional containment (e.g., a stronger emphasis on suppressing or transforming shame in the United States).