Adherence to emotion norms is greater in individualist cultures than in collectivist cultures

Autor: Allon Vishkin, Shinobu Kitayama, Martha K. Berg, Ed Diener, Daphna Gross-Manos, Asher Ben-Arieh, Maya Tamir
Rok vydání: 2023
Předmět:
Zdroj: Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. 124:1256-1276
ISSN: 1939-1315
0022-3514
DOI: 10.1037/pspi0000409
Popis: It is generally assumed that there is greater pressure to conform to social norms in collectivist cultures than in individualist cultures. However, most research on cultural differences in social norms has examined norms for behaviors. Here, we examine cultural differences in norms for emotions. Relative to members of collectivist cultures, members of individualist cultures are more attuned to internal states and value them more. Therefore, we predicted that adherence to emotion norms would be greater in individualist than in collectivist cultures. In four studies with 119 samples from 69 distinct countries and over 200,000 participants, we estimated adherence to emotion norms in different cultures, and how deviation from emotion norms is associated with life satisfaction. As predicted, in countries higher in individualism, emotional experiences of individuals were more homogenous and more concordant with the emotions of others in their culture. Furthermore, in more individualist countries, deviation from the mean emotional experience was linked to lower life satisfaction. We discuss two complementary mechanisms that may underlie such differences. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).
Databáze: OpenAIRE