Feeling concern about the suffering of others is considered a basic human response, and yet, we know surprisingly little about the cultural factors that shape how people respond to the suffering of another person. To this end, we conducted four studies that tested the hypothesis that American expressions of sympathy focus on the negative less and positive more than German expressions of sympathy, in part because Americans want to avoid negative states more than Germans do. In Study 1, we demonstrate that American sympathy cards contained less negative and more positive content than German sympathy cards. In Study 2, we show that European Americans want to avoid negative states more than Germans do. In Study 3, we demonstrate that these cultural differences in “avoided negative affect” mediate cultural differences in how comfortable Americans and Germans felt focusing on the negative (vs. positive) when expressing sympathy for the hypothetical death of an acquaintance's father. To examine whether greater avoided negative affect results in lesser focus on the negative and greater focus on the positive when responding to another person's suffering, in Study 4, American and German participants were randomly assigned to one of two conditions: (1) to “push negative images away” (i.e., increasing desire to avoid negative affect), or (2) to “pull negative images closer” to themselves (i.e., decreasing desire to avoid negative affect). Participants were then asked to pick a card to send to an acquaintance whose father had hypothetically just died. Across cultures, participants in the “push negative away” condition were less likely to choose sympathy cards with negative (vs. positive) content than were those in the “pull negative closer” condition. Together, these studies suggest that cultures differ in their desire to avoid negative affect, and that these differences influence the degree to which expressions of sympathy focus on the negative (vs. positive). We discuss the implications of these findings for current models of sympathy, compassion, and helping.

Pursuing happiness can paradoxically impair well-being. Here, we propose the potential downsides to pursuing happiness may be specific to individualistic cultures. In collectivistic (vs. individualistic) cultures, pursuing happiness may be more successful because happiness is viewed – and thus pursued – in relatively socially-engaged ways. In four geographical regions that vary in level of collectivism (U.S., Germany, Russia, East Asia), we assessed participants’ well-being, motivation to pursue happiness, and to what extent they pursued happiness in socially-engaged ways. Motivation to pursue happiness predicted lower well-being in the U.S., did not predict well-being in Germany, and predicted higher well-being in Russia and in East Asia. These cultural differences in the link between motivation to pursue happiness and well-being were explained by cultural differences in the socially-engaged pursuit of happiness. These findings suggest that culture shapes whether the pursuit of happiness is linked with better or worse well-being, perhaps via how people pursue happiness.

When given a choice, how do people decide which physician to select? Although significant research has demonstrated that how people actually feel (their “actual affect”) influences their health care preferences, how people ideally want to feel (their “ideal affect”) may play an even greater role. Specifically, we predicted that people trust physicians whose affective characteristics match their ideal affect, which leads people to prefer those physicians more. Consistent with this prediction, the more participants wanted to feel high arousal positive states on average ([ideal HAP]; e.g., excited), the more likely they were to select a HAP-focused physician. Similarly, the more people wanted to feel low arousal positive states on average ([ideal LAP]; e.g., calm), the more likely they were to select a LAP-focused physician. Also as predicted, these links were mediated by perceived physician trustworthiness. Notably, while participants’ ideal affect predicted physician preference, actual affect (how much people actually felt HAP and LAP on average) did not. These findings suggest that people base even serious decisions on how they want to feel and highlight the importance of considering ideal affect in models of decision making, person perception, and patient physician communication.

Most studies of meditation have focused on "actual affect" (how people actually feel). We predict that meditation may even more significantly alter "ideal affect" (how people ideally want to feel). As predicted, meditators ideally wanted to feel calm more and excited less than nonmeditators, but the groups did not differ in their actual experience of calm or excited states (Study 1). We ruled out self-selection and nonspecific effects by randomly assigning participants to meditation classes, an improvisational theater class, or a no class control (Study 2). After eight weeks, meditators valued calm more but did not differ in their actual experience of calm compared with the other groups. There were no differences in ideal or actual excitement, suggesting that meditation selectively increases the value placed on calm. These findings were not due to expectancy effects (Study 3). We discuss the implications of these findings for understanding how meditation alters affective life. : emotion, meditation, affect, ideal, calm In the last decade, there has been a rapid resurgence of scientific interest in the effects of meditation on various aspects of psychological functioning (e.g., Keywords

These findings suggest that while physicians who promote and emphasize excitement states may be effective with European Americans, they may be less so with Asian Americans and other ethnic minorities who value different affective states. (PsycINFO Database Record

Based on the CAD Triad Hypothesis (Rozin, Lowery, Imada, & Haidt, 1999), the authors hypothesized relationships between specific values and display rules for specific emotions. In particular, the authors proposed that Conservation and Self-Enhancement would be related to the display rule to express contempt, Conservation would be related to the display rule to express disgust, and Openness to Change and Self-Transcendence would be related to the display rules to express anger and sadness. To test this framework and its cross-cultural applicability, the present study examines values and emotional display rules among 106 U.S. Americans and 77 Germans. As predicted, Americans valued Conservation and Self-Enhancement more than did Germans, who valued Openness to Change and Self-Transcendence more than did Americans. These value differences were associated with differences in display rules; Americans endorsed contempt and disgust expressions more than did Germans, who endorsed anger and sadness expressions more than did Americans. Values mediated ("unpackaged") many of these country differences in display rules. Implications of these findings are discussed.Recent research has demonstrated the existence of cultural differences in both emotional display rules and values (e.g.the association between them on the cultural level (Matsumoto et al., 2008). But to date, there is no theoretical framework linking specific values with specific, discrete display rules on the individual level. In this article, we offer such a framework and use it to explain cultural differences in display rules in a U.S.-German comparison. We hypothesize that cultural differences in individual-level values exist, that they are related to display rules within cultures, and that they explain between-cultural

Noticing someone’s pain is the first step to a compassionate response. While past research suggests that the degree to which people want to avoid feeling negative (“avoided negative affect”; ANA) shapes how people respond to someone’s suffering, the present research investigates whether ANA also predicts how people process others’ suffering. In two studies, using complex photographs containing negative aspects (i.e., suffering), we found that the higher people’s ANA, the fewer details of negative aspects they correctly recognized, and the fewer negative words they used in their image descriptions. However, when asked to process negative content, the higher people’s ANA, the more negatively they rated that content. In Study 3, we report cultural differences in people’s sensitivity to notice suffering in an ambiguous image. ANA mediated these cultural differences. Implications for research on compassion are discussed.

American compassionate responses (i.e., sending sympathy cards) focus more on the positive (e.g., comforting memories) and less on the negative (e.g., the pain of someone's death) than German compassionate responses, partly because of cultural differences in how much people want to avoid feeling negative (i.e., avoided negative affect [ANA]). However, are these culture-specific compassionate responses considered more comforting and compassionate within their respective cultural context? We predicted that Americans would find responses that focus on the negative less and those that focus on the positive more comforting and compassionate than Germans will and that ANA would mediate these differences. In Study 1, 152 Americans and 315 Germans reported their ANA and rated how comforting they considered receiving different sympathy cards. As predicted, Americans found sympathy cards that contained negative content less and cards that contained positive content more comforting than Germans did. In Studies 2a and 2b, to examine whether these culture-specific conceptualizations of a comforting response would generalize to how people conceptualize a compassionate face, 118 Americans and 80 Germans selected stimuli that most resembled a compassionate (or happy) face using a reverse correlation task. As predicted, people's mental representation of a compassionate face contained more happiness/less sadness in an American than German context. Across studies, ANA partially mediated the cultural differences. This research demonstrates that responses that are intended to be compassionate might not be considered equally compassionate and comforting across cultures, which has implications for relief efforts, which are often organized internationally.