Cultural differences in emotional responses to success and failure

Abstract

The emotional responses to achievement contexts of 149 preschool children from three cultural groups were observed. The children were Japanese (N=32), African American (N=63) and White American of mixed European ancestry (N=54). The results showed that Japanese children differed from American children in expressing less shame, pride, and sadness, but more of both exposure and evaluative embarrassment. African American and White American children did not differ from one another. American children however showed more evaluative as opposed to exposure embarrassment. This finding supports the idea that success and failure are interpreted differently by Japanese children during the preschool years. The low amount of sadness and shame expression, and the limited range of number of different expressions observed in the Japanese children agree with the general finding that East Asian infants and young children differ from Western infants and children primarily in the display of negative expressions. These results demonstrate that cultural differences, whether due to temperament or direct socialization of cultural values, influence how children respond to achievement situations.

Racial/ethnic disparities in cortisol diurnal patterns and affect in adolescence

“…Effect sizes were larger for high-arousal positive affect, where all the contrasts remained significant even after the Bonferroni correction. These results are consistent with the greater risk of mood disorders in ethnic minorities compared to White youth (Merikangas et al, 2010), and findings that indicate lower positive affect among minority samples are also consistent with some previous research that has noted differences in emotion expression and valence between Asian American and White children (Lewis, Takai-Kawakami, Kawakami, & Sullivan, 2009) and adults (Gross, Richards, & John, 2006). Research on cultural differences in ideal affect, or affect that people would like to feel, has also indicated that Asian Americans are less likely to endorse high arousal positive states and more likely to endorse low arousal positive states than European Americans (for review, see Tsai, 2007).…”

Neglected Children, Shame-Proneness, and Depressive Symptoms

“…The TOSCA-C has been administered previously to ethnically and socioeconomically diverse public school children (Tangney & Dearing, 2002). Consistent with recent research showing no difference in the extent of shame exhibited between African American and Caucasian children (Lewis, Takai-Kawakami, Kawakami, & Sullivan, 2010), our mean shame-proneness scores were similar to those reported by Tangney and Dearing. Cronbach's alpha was .70 for the shame subscale and .72 for the guilt subscale.…”

Children’s emotional expressivity and teacher perceptions of social competence

“…Thus, it is possible that expression of sadness may be more acceptable than anger in collectivistic contexts as there is less potential for breeding conflict (Matsumoto, Takeuchi, Andayani, Kouznetsova, & Krupp, 1998) and thus may not be as detrimental to perceived social competence. On the other hand, expressions of sadness may be as likely as anger expression to draw attention to the self in ways that contravene group orientation (Lewis, Takai-Kawakami, Kawakami, & Sullivan, 2010). Further study is needed on the implications of sadness expression on social functioning in collectivistic contexts.…”