A moderator of cultural differences in emotional responding: Attention to individual and relational self cues

Literature on cultural differences in emotions suggests that the individual locus of emotions is fostered in European American cultural contexts, whereas the relational locus of emotion is fostered in Asian cultural contexts. The three studies reported here examine the relationship among culturally shaped locus of emotion, situational focus of attention to individual or relational cues, and emotional responding (subjective reports of emotions, and facial behavior). It was hypothesized that focusing on the culturally salient cues (individual cues for those from European American cultural contexts and relational cues for those from Asian cultural contexts) enhances emotions. Study 1 established that individuals from European American cultural contexts report higher levels of attention to the individual self and lower levels of attention to family members than do individuals from Asian cultural contexts. Studies 2 and 3 tested the hypothesis that across cultural groups, emotional responding is enhanced when situational focus of attention matches the individual's culturally based locus of emotions (cultural match hypothesis). To induce situation focus of attention, European American and Asian American participants were asked to think about themselves (individual self focus), about a family member (family focus), or about a neutral topic (neutral focus). The hypothesis was supported: across the two studies, European Americans in individual focus condition experienced and expressed more positive emotion in response to two different elicitors of emotion (film and music clips) than did Asian Americans in the same experimental condition. In contrast, Asian Americans in family focus condition experienced and expressed more positive emotions than did European Americans in the same experimental condition. European Americans and Asian Americans in the neutral condition experienced similar levels of positive emotion. The impact of ethnicity on reported positive emotions in individual and family focus condition was mediated by aspects of independence (assertiveness) and interdependence (felt responsibility for family members), respectively. These results demonstrate that emotional experience and expression are more individually embedded for participants from mainstream American cultural contexts and more relationally embedded for participants from Asian American cultural contexts.