Cultural Influences on Emotional Responding: Chinese American and European American Dating Couples During Interpersonal Conflict
Abstract
Ethnographic descriptions suggest that compared to European Americans, Chinese Americans place a greater emphasis on emotional moderation. To assess whether such cultural differences influence actual emotional responding, we compared the physiological responses and reported affect of 22 Chinese American and 20 European American college-age dating couples in an interpersonal context, that is, during conversations about areas of conflict in their relationship. Although some of our findings were consistent with ethnographic notions of greater emotional moderation in Chinese culture (Chinese Americans demonstrated less variable and less positive reported affect and less variable cardiac interbeat intervals than European Americans), other findings were not (Chinese Americans and European Americans did not differ in most measures of physiological responding and in reported negative affect).
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Positive emotional contexts may be more likely to reveal ethnic differences in suppression.
“Positive emotional contexts also may be more likely to reveal ethnic differences in suppression.”
From Cardiovascular costs of emotion suppression cross ethnic lines. (2008) · cites this paper as Tsai & Levenson, 1997
Suppressing and exaggerating one's facial response to positive (but not negative) stimuli has been found to decrease and increase self-reported positive emotion, respectively.
“For example, suppressing and exaggerating one's facial response to positive (but not negative) stimuli has been found to decrease and increase self-reported positive emotion, respectively”
From Cardiovascular costs of emotion suppression cross ethnic lines. (2008) · cites this paper as Tsai & Levenson, 1997
Ethnic and cultural differences often have emerged in positive but not negative emotional contexts.
“and ethnic and cultural differences often have emerged in positive but not negative emotional contexts (Gross et al., 2006; Roberts & Levenson, 2006; Tsai & Levenson, 1997).”
From Cardiovascular costs of emotion suppression cross ethnic lines. (2008) · cites this paper as Tsai & Levenson, 1997
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- Authors
- Tsai, J. L., & Levenson, R. W.
- Affiliations
- University of Minnesota (US)
- University of California, Berkeley (US)
- Venue
- Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology
- Publisher
- SAGE Publications
- Published
- 1997-09
- Volume
- 28
- Issue
- 5
- Pages
- 600-625
- ISSN
- 0022-0221 (ISSN-L)
- 1552-5422
- OpenAlex
- W2161188078
- Cited by
- 278
- References
- 4
- Citations by year
- 2026: 5 · 2025: 2 · 2024: 7 · 2023: 12 · 2022: 6 · 2021: 10 · 2020: 57 · 2019: 10 · 2018: 7 · 2017: 10 · 2016: 11 · 2015: 12 · 2014: 16 · 2013: 13 · 2012: 8
- FWCI
- 2.13
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Cultural Differences and Values
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Emotions and Moral Behavior
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Attachment and Relationship Dynamics
- Keywords
- cultural differences in emotion, Chinese Americans, European Americans, interpersonal conflict, dating couples, physiological responses, cardiac interbeat intervals, negative affect, cross-cultural comparison
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