People in Ecuador and the United States conceptualize compassion differently: The role of avoided negative affect.

Facing discomfort: Avoided negative affect shapes the acknowledgment of systemic racism.

“…Future research could examine longer manipulations (lasting for several days or even weeks) and/or stronger manipulations of ANA (and possibly different components such as teaching about the usefulness of negative affect, embracing negative affect, and exposure to negative affect) to see whether these can decrease ANA among people in the United States. Future research can also examine whether the manipulation we used in our study might be effective in other cultural contexts (e.g., Germany, China, Ecuador), where people’s motivation to avoid feeling negative is not as high as in the United States (Koopmann-Holm & Tsai, 2014; Larco et al, 2024; Seow et al, 2024).…”

“…Research on AVT suggests that while temperament shapes actual more than ideal and avoided affect, culture shapes ideal and avoided affect more than actual affect. For example, U.S. Americans want to avoid feeling negative more than people in Germany, China, and Ecuador (e.g., Koopmann-Holm & Tsai, 2014; Larco et al, 2024; Seow et al, 2024). Moreover, research on AVT suggests that both ideal and avoided affect are important predictors of behavior, even after controlling for actual affect.…”

“…Because of the cultural differences in ANA, considering the cultural context in which we examine ANA is important. As mentioned above, people in the United States want to avoid feeling negative emotions more than people in other parts of the world (e.g., Koopmann-Holm & Tsai, 2014; Larco et al, 2024; Seow et al, 2024). This is in line with other work suggesting that people in the United States try to reduce their distress after a negative event (Miyamoto et al, 2014).…”