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Project

The Relationality of Feelings: A cultural comparison of affective patterns in Western and East-Asian relationships

Western and East-Asian cultures appear to emphasize different ideas about how to build and maintain relationships with others around us: Close relationships in Western cultures are marked by a strong focus on the individual, and are supposed to offer partners a space to foster self-esteem and meet their personal needs. In contrast, close relationships in East-Asian cultures are marked by an emphasis on the relatedness and social harmony between individuals, highlighting the importance of first and foremost anticipating and adjusting to the needs and expectations of others (Kitayama & Markus, 2000; Rothbaum, Pott, Azuma, Miyake, & Weisz, 2000).

These cultural differences in relationship practices have implications for the feelings that are likely to arise in close relationships. Our emotions play a critical role when it comes to forming and maintaining relationships with others: they reflect and communicate our values and needs towards others, and help us to negotiate and shape relationships in ways that are appropriate and fulfilling (Mesquita, 2010). Accordingly, as relationship practices and goals vary between cultures, so should the most prominent feelings that emerge in these relationships, supporting partners in pursuing these central cultural relationship goals and in maintaining relationships in culturally appropriate ways. Previous cross-cultural studies have indeed shown meaningful cultural differences in the emotion norms and experiences of individuals (Miyamoto, Ma, & Wilken, 2017), but our understanding is still lacking when it comes to whether these cultural differences reflect cultural relationship models, and how these differences in emotions play out in actual relationships.

The present dissertation therefore set out to study if and how emotions in close relationship vary (systematically) across Western and East-Asian cultures. We hypothesized that (1) close relationships in Western and East-Asian cultures would each be characterized relatively more by those feelings that are consistent with, and support, the respective cultural relationship goals, that (2) close relationships in the two cultures are marked relatively more by different affective temporal dynamics that are geared towards the experience of emotions that are consistent with the respective cultural relationship goals, and that (3) both the emotions, and the affective dynamics, that support cultural relationship goals are associated with better relational wellbeing in the respective cultures. In examining these hypotheses, we specifically focused on the emotional experience in social, interpersonal situations, where relationships are repeatedly negotiated, and on the experience of positive and negative feelings as cross-culturally reliable indicators of affective experience.

 My thesis addresses the research aims in three different studies, utilizing different methodological (e.g. daily diary, standardized interactions, situation vignettes) and analytical approaches (e.g. multilevel modeling, structural equation modeling, sequential analysis). My dissertation starts with studies describing cultural differences in specific emotions of individuals from a Western (United States) and an East-Asian cultural context (Japan). Following this, a large portion of this dissertation builds upon the experience of positive and negative affect in relationships, drawn from a cross-cultural, multi-method study conducted with romantic couples from Belgium and Japan. Results converge to support the idea that culture systematically and meaningfully shapes emotions and emotional patterns in close relationships and social situations. 

Date:1 Sep 2014 →  29 May 2019
Keywords:Culture, Relationships, Emotions
Disciplines:Biological and physiological psychology, General psychology, Other psychology and cognitive sciences
Project type:PhD project