Cultural Differences in Mixed Emotions: The Role of Dialectical Thinking

Abstract

Who can feel both happy and sad at the same time, but not discomfort? This study aimed to investigate the cultural differences in mixed emotional experiences induced by conflict stimuli among American and Chinese undergraduate students. In total, 160 Americans and 158 Chinese watched two different valence advertisements (one predominantly positive and the other predominantly negative) that elicited mixed emotions; their feelings were assessed through self-reported measures. Findings indicated the impact that cultural differences have in people's mixed emotional experiences depends on the emotional components of the mixed emotional situations. The Americans and Chinese both experience a comparably intense mixture of emotions in different valence situations, but their discomfort toward conflicting stimuli is different. Further, dialectical thinking may be a mechanism behind the influence of cultural differences in people's mixed emotional experiences. Implications for emotion theory and research are discussed.

Keywords: culture; dialectical thinking; discomfort; mixed emotions; thinking style.

Figure 1

Cultural and situational differences in discomfort induced by conflict stimuli. Condition means of discomfort in predominantly pleasant situation and predominantly unpleasant situation. Error bars indicate 1 standard error of the mean (SE). PPS, predominantly pleasant situation; PUS, predominantly unpleasant situation.^**p < 0.01.

Figure 2

Mediation scheme of dialectical thinking in the association between culture and mixed emotional experience (MIN, NAM, and discomfort) in the predominantly positive situation. Illustrated values depict the standardized path parameters of mediation model in predominantly pleasant situations. Chinese participants were coded as 0; American participants were coded as 1; culture served as the independent variable; dialectical thinking as the mediation variable; MIN, NAM, and discomfort in predominantly pleasant situation as the outcome variables; sex and age were control variables. Values in brackets depict the indirect effects of culture on three different predictors. ^*p < 0.05; ^**p < 0.01; ^***p < 0.001.