Cultural influences on the relation between pleasant emotions and unpleasant emotions: Asian dialectic philosophies or individualism-collectivism?

The present study examined the hypothesis that Asian cultures’ dialectical way of thinking influences emotion reports. A dialectical way of thinking sees emotions of the opposite valence (e.g., happy, sad) as compatible with each other. In contrast, Western philosophy considers these emotions to be in conflict with each other. We examined correlations between frequency estimates of pleasant emotions (FPE) and frequency estimates of unpleasant emotions (FUE) in Asian, non-Asian collectivistic, and Western cultures. As predicted, FPE-FUE correlations were less negative in Asian cultures than in other cultures. We also observed a tendency for the culture effect to be moderated by gender. The strongest negative correlation was obtained for women in non-Asian cultures.