thinking – Success Across Cultures

Happiness. Sadness. Fear. Anger. Surprise. Disgust.

According to this study, titled “Two Sides of Emotion: Exploring Positivity and Negativity in Six Basic Emotions across Cultures,” universal emotions can be perceived positively or negatively by different cultures.

The study tested the affective and cognitive components of these emotions on Korean, Chinese, American, and Canadian students.

What the study found was that each of these emotions contain both positivity and negativity but were viewed differently among cultures.

Study’s Findings

Canadians and Americans (Westerners) and Chinese and Koreans (Easterners) have different thinking styles.

As the study notes:

“Easterners tend to be dialectical when thinking about a situation in a manner that balances the positives and negatives. When things are going well, Easterners might expect a change for the worse, and when things are going badly, they might expect things to get better.”

On the other hand, Westerners’ thinking style can lead to imbalance.

“Westerners tend to focus more on one pattern—things will tend to stay as they are, good or bad. This thinking style may lead Westerners to think that things are rather consistent, leading them to concentrate on one side of an issue.”

Let’s see how this affects each group’s perspective on these six basic emotions.

Sadness

Stronger positivity of sadness was reported by Easterners, and stronger negativity was reported by Westerners.

This complies with past studies’ findings that negative emotions have motivational and cognitive utility.

Other studies have found that Westerners tend to feel they shouldn’t have to face sadness, while Easterners embrace the experience of sadness.

Happiness

All four countries rated happiness as positive, though Easterners reported stronger negativity of happiness, while Westerners reported stronger positivity.

Past studies have found that happiness may be experienced differently and mean different things across cultures.

The study suggests that while happiness may be a bright sunny day in the West, it may be balanced with the negativity of a drizzle in the East.

Anger

Anger was viewed more positively by Easterners than by Westerners.

A 2013 study found that anger was expressed more by those with lower social status in the U.S., while it was expressed by those with higher social status in Japan, probably to demonstrate authority.

This may be one reason why Easterners view anger more positively than Westerners.

Fear

Americans were the only group to report stronger cognitive fear than affective fear.

Their thoughts and conceptualization of fear were more negative, as fear was anticipated more and felt less, or maybe suppressed, while the other three groups felt fear as more negative.

Koreans reported a stronger positivity of fear, which may be due to their history.

As a threatened nation, they may view fear as a norm that they must simply live with.

Disgust

Similarly to fear, Americans were the only group to report stronger cognitive disgust than affective disgust.

This means that others felt disgust more negatively, while Americans thought and conceptualized it more negatively.

Easterners reported a stronger positivity of disgust, which might suggest their duality of thinking/feeling that even “bad” things can be beneficial.

Surprise

Surprise was reported by Easterners to be more negative, while by Westerners it was reported to be more positive.

Unexpected events are viewed as more negative by Easterners, and although they expect change more than Westerners, it’s not as welcome.

We’ve all heard of “right-brain” and “left-brain” thinkers.

Left-brain thinkers are thought to be more logical and mathematical, while right-brain thinkers tend to lean emotional and artistic.

But are there any links between the way our brains function and our cultures?

We’ve talked a lot about gene-culture coevolution over these past few weeks.

In short, the theory suggests that genetics and culture are interconnected.

This brain imaging study about visual perceptual tasks seems to substantiate that theory.

Individualist vs. Collective

Psychological research has shown that individualist and collective values are demonstrated in an individual’s view of objects in relation to their context.

Americans, valuing individuality, tend to view the two as independent from each other.

East Asian cultures, which value the collective, view objects as contextually interdependent.

These differences have been shown to impact perception and memory by behavioral scientists.

The Study: How Our Brains Work

A study by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology took a look at whether these cultural tendencies can be measured in brain activity patterns.

Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) scans from a group of 20 participants – 10 from East Asia, 10 from the U.S. – McGovern Institute for Brain Research Professor John Gabrieli and his team examined participants’ mental operations.

Participants were asked to compare a sequence of images, and their mental operations were mapped via blood flow changes in the brain.

The images were lines within squares.

Participants were asked to compare each image with the previous image, making judgments based on relative judgments of interdependent objects or absolute judgments of individual objects without context.

For instance, some questions asked whether the lines were proportional to the squares, regardless of size (interdependent); others asked whether the lines were the same length as each other, regardless of the squares (independent of context).

The Results: Confirmed

While the simplicity of the task resulted in no differences in accuracy between the groups, brain activation patterns did differ.

Relative judgments, which have been shown to be harder for Americans, stimulated the brain regions dedicated to mental tasks that demand attention.

These regions were less active for absolute judgments.

As you might guess, the results for the East Asian group were the opposite, with brain activity becoming more active for absolute judgments and less for relative.

The paper’s lead author, Trey Hedden, said of the study:

“We were surprised at the magnitude of the difference between the two cultural groups, and also at how widespread the engagement of the brain’s attention system became when making judgments outside the cultural comfort zone.”

Even more interesting, questionnaires had been distributed prior to the exam to see how closely each individual identified with their culture, using questions regarding values and norms.

Those individuals who identified more intimately with their culture’s values showed a stronger reactive pattern of brain activity relative to their culture.

This study suggests that our culture – and how closely we individually identify with our culture – can influence the way our minds work.

Pretty heady.

Tag: thinking

6 Basic Emotions & How They Are Viewed by Different Cultures

How Does Culture Influence the Way We Use Our Brains? Find Out Here.