Are Western Cultures Happier than Eastern Cultures?

According to a new study, individuals from Western cultures are more willing to express positive emotions than those from Eastern cultures. “All around the world, people should generally want to feel positive emotions and avoid feeling negative emotions,” said Yuri Miyamoto of the Department of Psychology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “Depending on individuals and situations, people sometimes try to down-regulate positive emotions. For example, when experiencing positive emotions, people low in self-esteem tend to become anxious and dampen their positive emotions compared with people high in self-esteem.” Miyamoto believes that cultural differences influence how people regulate their response to positive emotions. “In Western culture, the dominant cultural script is to maximize positive emotions and minimize negative emotions,” said Miyamoto. “Although positive emotions are generally considered to be more desirable and appropriate than negative emotions are across cultures, positive emotions are considered to be more desirable in Western cultures than in Eastern cultures, whereas negative emotions are considered to be more undesirable in Western cultures than in Eastern cultures.”

In an effort to provide support for this theory, Miyamoto interviewed East Asian and European American undergraduates after they recalled specific positive memories. He found that all of the participants wanted to experience and savor their positive emotions, but the East Asian participants were more prone to minimize the impact of the positive memory. Additionally, Miyamoto found that the East Asian students continued to experience less positive emotions than the European Americans even a full day after the event. “Overall, these results suggest that a dialectical cultural script not only underlies cultural differences in hedonic emotion regulation but also has consequences on subsequent emotional experiences.”  Miyamoto said, “This might have practical implications, for instance, for therapists.” He added, “Therapists may want to be aware that a lack of hedonic emotion regulation might not be necessarily indicative of a mental health problem for Asians. Instead, helping Asians strive to achieve a more ‘middle way’ in their emotion regulation strategies might lead to optimal mental health.”

Reference:
Miyamoto, Yuri, and Xiaoming Ma. “Dampening or Savoring Positive Emotions: A Dialectical Cultural Script Guides Emotion Regulation.” Emotion 11.6 (2011): 1346-347. Print.

© Copyright 2011 by By John Smith. All Rights Reserved. Permission to publish granted to GoodTherapy.org.

The preceding article was solely written by the author named above. Any views and opinions expressed are not necessarily shared by GoodTherapy.org. Questions or concerns about the preceding article can be directed to the author or posted as a comment below.

  • 8 comments
  • Leave a Comment
  • Gavin McCaig

    December 22nd, 2011 at 12:02 AM

    Eastern cultures, especially Japan, are very demanding of their citizens to conform axiomatically to a level that would be thought of as oppressive in the West. Those that don’t are often shunned or looked down upon because they don’t conform to society.

  • Mel Kennedy

    December 22nd, 2011 at 12:34 AM

    I think we Western cultures could take a leaf out of our Oriental cousins’ books. We spent our lives teaching our children anything was possible when you apply diligence and they turned that positive message on its head, ignoring the effort part of it.

    More and more I see that Western children are turning into generation after generation of spoiled, disrespectful brats. This behavior is deplorable and a very sad reflection of the environment we’re raising them in. We used to be so proud of our kids! Now they are a global embarrassment and certainly no ambassadors for our country when abroad.

  • robin

    December 22nd, 2011 at 5:59 AM

    I have always thought that people from the Eastern side of the world are more uptight and less willing to be who they want to be , maybe out of fear of disappointing others in the family. That is something of a cultural thing for them, whereas here in the West the attitude seems to be a little more laidback and giving than those in other parts of the world. I know that Asia has become very successful but at what cost to the happiness of those who are raised there?

show more comments

Leave a Comment

By commenting you acknowledge acceptance of GoodTherapy.org's Terms and Conditions of Use.

 

* Indicates required field.

GoodTherapy uses cookies to personalize content and ads to provide better services for our users and to analyze our traffic. By continuing to use this site you consent to our cookies.