Diurnal variation in clinical depression and accessibility of memories of positive and negative experiences.

Each of 12 depressed patients with diurnal mood variation was seen at 2 different times during the day. On one of these occasions they were substantially more depressed than on the other. On each occasion they recalled life experiences associated to stimulus words. At the end of the 2nd occasion they rated these experiences for happiness or unhappiness at the time the experience occurred and also for current happiness or unhappiness. Memories of experiences that had been unhappy were more likely to be retrieved on the more depressed occasion than on the less depressed occasion. Memories of experiences that had been happy were more likely to be retrieved on the less depressed occasion than on the more depressed occasion. The current hedonic tone of a recalled experience was more likely to be rated less positive (or more negative) than the original hedonic tone the more depressed a person was while making the ratings. Findings are discussed in relation to cognitive theories of the development and maintenance of depression and in relation to its treatment. (19 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Cultural affordances and emotional experience: Socially engaging and disengaging emotions in Japan and the United States.

The authors hypothesized that whereas Japanese culture encourages socially engaging emotions (e.g., friendly feelings and guilt), North American culture fosters socially disengaging emotions (e.g., pride and anger). In two cross-cultural studies, the authors measured engaging and disengaging emotions repeatedly over different social situations and found support for this hypothesis. As predicted, Japanese showed a pervasive tendency to reportedly experience engaging emotions more strongly than they experienced disengaging emotions, but Americans showed a reversed tendency. Moreover, as also predicted, Japanese subjective well-being (i.e., the experience of general positive feelings) was more closely associated with the experience of engaging positive emotions than with that of disengaging emotions. Americans tended to show the reversed pattern. The established cultural differences in the patterns of emotion suggest the consistent and systematic cultural shaping of emotion over time. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Voluntary settlement and the spirit of independence: Evidence from Japan's "northern frontier."

The authors hypothesized that economically motivated voluntary settlement in the frontier fosters independent agency. While illuminating the historical origin of American individualism, this hypothesis can be most powerfully tested in a region that is embedded in a broader culture of interdependence and yet has undergone a recent history of such settlement. The authors therefore examined residents of Japan's northern island (Hokkaido). Hokkaido was extensively settled by ethnic Japanese beginning in the 1870s and for several decades thereafter. Many of the current residents of Hokkaido are the descendents of the original settlers from this period. As predicted, Japanese socialized and/or immersed in Hokkaido were nearly as likely as European Americans in North America to associate happiness with personal achievement (Study 1), to show a personal dissonance effect wherein self-justification is motivated by a threat to personal self-images (Study 2), and to commit a dispositional bias in causal attribution (Study 3). In contrast, these marker effects of independent agency were largely absent for non-Hokkaido residents in Japan. Implications for theories of cultural change and persistence are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A multimodal analysis of personal negativity

This study examined how unhappiness and self-dissatisfaction are related to behavior, self-perception, social reputation, and the way one is treated by others. Varying in personal negativity (PN)--a composite of unhappiness, dissatisfaction with life, low self-esteem, and nonclinical depression--146 undergraduates (82 women and 64 men) engaged in 3 interactions. Participants' behavior and the behavior of their interaction partners was coded from videotapes. Personality ratings were obtained from participants and from 2 close acquaintances. PN was closely associated with maladaptive social interactions, negative behavioral responses by others, and a negative social reputation and self-image. Although women more clearly expressed PN behaviorally, men and women showed generally similar patterns of correlates. These results suggest that even subclinical levels of unhappiness and self-dissatisfaction may have important consequences.     

A cultural task analysis of implicit independence: Comparing North America, Western Europe, and East Asia.

Informed by a new theoretical framework that assigns a key role to cultural tasks (culturally prescribed means to achieve cultural mandates such as independence and interdependence) in mediating the mutual influences between culture and psychological processes, the authors predicted and found that North Americans are more likely than Western Europeans (British and Germans) to (a) exhibit focused (vs. holistic) attention, (b) experience emotions associated with independence (vs. interdependence), (c) associate happiness with personal achievement (vs. communal harmony), and (d) show an inflated symbolic self. In no cases were the 2 Western European groups significantly different from one another. All Western groups showed (e) an equally strong dispositional bias in attribution. Across all of the implicit indicators of independence, Japanese were substantially less independent (or more interdependent) than the three Western groups. An explicit self-belief measure of independence and interdependence showed an anomalous pattern. These data were interpreted to suggest that the contemporary American ethos has a significant root in both Western cultural heritage and a history of voluntary settlement. Further analysis offered unique support for the cultural task analysis. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A bilinear multidimensional measurement model of Asian American acculturation and enculturation: Implications for counseling interventions.

Several unilinear and bilinear dimensional measurement models of Asian American acculturation and enculturation were tested with confirmatory factor analysis. Bilinear models of acculturation consistently outperformed the unilinear model. In addition, models that articulated multiple dimensions (i.e., values and behavior) exhibited a better fit to the data than did unidimensional models. The degree to which Asian Americans adhered to the values and behavior associated with each culture differed. Specifically, there was a small relationship between values and behavior in the Asian cultural orientation, whereas there was a moderate relationship between values and behaviors in the Western cultural orientation and between Asian behavior and Western behavior. Present findings suggest that the way in which Asian Americans negotiate the acculturation and enculturation process is likely nuanced and complex. Implications for working with Asian Americans and future directions for research are explored. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

An examination of happiness as a buffer of the rumination–adjustment link: Ethnic differences between European and Asian American students.

Individuals who ruminate (i.e., a tendency to respond to negative life events with negative self-reflection) have consistently been found to be associated with maladaptive functioning (i.e., anxious and depressive symptoms). Happy individuals, on the other hand, have been found to have minimized anxious and depressive symptoms. Not surprisingly, rumination is negatively correlated with happiness. However, ethnic variations in the associations between these variables have not been studied previously. Thus, an integrative model involving rumination and happiness as predictors of psychological maladjustment (viz., depressive and anxious symptoms) was proposed and tested in 184 Asian Americans and 238 European Americans. For European Americans and not Asian Americans, results of hierarchical regression analysis indicated a significant Rumination × Happiness interaction in predicting each of the maladjustment measures after accounting for the influences of both rumination and happiness. These findings are taken to offer support for a more interactive regression model of psychological maladjustment involving rumination and happiness. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Mental health values and preference for mental health resources of Japanese-American and Caucasian-American students.

The authors investigated Asian-American underuse of mental health resources as a function of attitudes about the nature of mental health (mental health values) and resource preference for assistance with serious personal problems, with 91 Caucasian-American and 90 Japanese-American undergraduates. Results from a mental health values questionnaire (MHVQ) revealed that Japanese Americans more strongly related several MHVQ scales to mental health (good interpersonal relations, trustworthiness, and absence of negative personal traits) than did Caucasian Americans. Nevertheless, they were less likely than Caucasian Americans to rank mental health professionals as first choice for assistance with serious interpersonal/emotional problems and more likely to prefer close friends for assistance. Mental health values and attitudes about appropriate help-seeking behavior are discussed in relation to the Asian-American underuse phenomenon. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Affect-generating powers of effort and ability self attributions of academic success and failure.

Studied (a) the affect productivity of effort and (b) the ability self-attributions of success or failure. Three experiments collectively involving 315 college students were run wherein Ss had to indicate for either hypothetical academic success or failure the effort–ability attribution that would generate in them the greatest affect. Relative to those in effort, attributions to ability generated as much happiness, but less pride, in the case of success and more unhappiness, but less shame, in the case of failure. It is concluded that ability attributions have a greater affective impact when morally neutral affects (e.g., happiness and unhappiness), as opposed to morally unneutral affects (e.g., pride and shame), are involved. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Cultural influences on cognitive representations of conflict: Interpretations of conflict episodes in the United States and Japan.

This article integrates theory from the cognitive tradition in negotiation with theory on culture and examines cultural influences on cognitive representations of conflict. The authors predicted that although there may be universal (etic) dimensions of conflict construals, there also may be culture-specific (emic) representations of conflict in the United States and Japan. Results of multidimensional scaling analyses of U.S. and Japanese conflict episodes supported this view. Japanese and Americans construed conflicts through a compromise versus win frame (R. L. Pinkley, 1990), providing evidence of a universal dimension of conflict construal. As the authors predicted, Japanese perceived conflicts to be more compromise-focused, as compared with Americans. There were also unique dimensions of construal among Americans and Japanese (infringements to self and giri violations, respectively), suggesting that identical conflict episodes are perceived differently across cultures. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The cognitive and hedonic costs of dwelling on achievement-related negative experiences: Implications for enduring happiness and unhappiness.

Increasing evidence suggests that multiple cognitive and motivational processes underlie individual differences in happiness (Lyubomirsky, 2001, 2008). One behavior that is associated with (un)happiness is self-reflection or dwelling. We hypothesized that unhappy individuals would be inclined to dwell about themselves, and that this behavior would have a variety of adverse consequences. Three studies tested the prediction that, unlike their happier peers, unhappy participants would be sensitive to unfavorable achievement feedback, likely to dwell about its implications and, hence, show impaired attention during important academic tasks. The results of Studies 1 and 2 showed that unhappy participants who had “failed” relative to peers subsequently displayed increased interfering thoughts; spent the most time performing a portion of the graduate record examination; and later demonstrated impaired reading comprehension. Study 3 experimentally induced versus inhibiting dwelling and found that the manipulation only impacted unhappy students. Implications of our results for the consequences of dwelling for work and social functioning, as well as for detracting from enduring happiness, are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Emotional expression and physiology in European Americans and Hmong Americans.

Ethnographic and clinical observations suggest that Asians are less expressive than European Americans. To examine whether this difference emerged in online emotional responding, 50 Hmong Americans (HAs) and 48 European Americans (EAs) were asked to relive past episodes of intense happiness, pride, love, anger, disgust, and sadness. Facial behavior and physiological reactivity were measured. For most emotions, more cultural similarities than differences were found. There were some exceptions: During happiness, fewer HAs than EAs showed non-Duchenne smiles (i.e., "social" smiles), despite similarities in reported emotional experience and physiological reactivity. Within-group differences between "less Hmong" and "more Hmong" HAs were also found. Implications of these findings for our understanding of culture-emotion relations are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Cognitions and behavior in asymmetric social dilemmas: A comparison of two cultures.

This study investigated whether cognitions and behavior in an asymmetric social dilemma can be predicted by national culture. Results indicated that, as predicted, groups of decision makers from Japan--a collectivist, hierarchical culture--were more cooperative, expected others to be more cooperative, and were more likely to adopt an equal allocation distribution rule to resolve the dilemma than were groups of decision makers from the US--an individualist, egalitarian culture. An opportunity for communication had a greater impact on expectations of others' behavior in groups of U.S. decision makers than in groups of Japanese decision makers. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Variations of emotional display rules within and across cultures: A comparison between Canada, USA, and Japan.

This study investigates emotional display rules for seven basic emotions. The main goal was to compare emotional display rules of Canadians, US Americans, and Japanese across as well as within cultures regarding the specific emotion, the type of interaction partner, and gender. A total of 835 university students participated in the study. The results indicate that Japanese display rules permit the expression of powerful (anger, contempt, and disgust) significantly less than those of the two North American samples. Japanese also think that they should express positive emotions (happiness, surprise) significantly less than the Canadian sample. Furthermore, Japanese varied the display rules for different interaction partners more than the two North American samples did only for powerful emotions. Gender differences were similar across all three cultural groups. Men expressed powerful emotions more than women and women expressed powerless emotions (sadness, fear) and happiness more than men. Depending on the type of emotion and interaction partner some shared display rules occurred across culture and gender. The implications of these findings are discussed in relation to cultural dimensions and other cultural characteristics. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The pursuit of failure and the idealization of unhappiness.

Presents a psychoanalytic account of unconscious mental processes involved in entrenched psychical suffering, arguing that reported failures have been pursued at least as much and as actively as they have been the result of inescapable adversity. Patients in this regard often indulge in inappropriate self-blaming and thus compound their sense of failure and unhappiness. Freudian tenets of the pursuit of failure by those who are "wrecked by success" are examined. Case examples are presented to illustrate contradictory infantile meanings of success, failure, happiness, and unhappiness. Although disturbed ideal-self development appears to characterize both sexes, the unconscious active pursuit of failure seems more prevalent in men and the unconscious idealization of unhappiness in women. This relative sex difference is attributed to sexist influences on women, typical fantasies and problems of early development, and the analyst's interpretive activity that inevitably influences the dialogic construction of psychoanalytic life histories and that varies among and within schools of psychoanalytic thought. (21 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Cultural variation in correspondence bias: The critical role of attitude diagnosticity of socially constrained behavior.

Upon observing another's socially constrained behavior, people often ascribe to the person an attitude that corresponds to the behavior (called the correspondence bias [CB]). The authors found that when a socially constrained behavior is still diagnostic of the actor's attitude, both Americans and Japanese show an equally strong CB. A major cultural difference occurred when the behavior was minimally diagnostic. Demonstrating their persistent bias toward dispositional attribution, Americans showed a strong CB. But Japanese did not show any CB (Study 1). Furthermore, a mediational analysis revealed that this cross-cultural difference was due in part to the nature of explicit inferences generated online during attitudinal judgment (Study 2). Implications for the cultural grounding of social perception are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Cognitive reappraisal in the context of oppression: Implications for psychological functioning.

Research on emotion regulation has shown cognitive reappraisal to be positively correlated with better psychological functioning. Prior research has failed to account for contextual influences on this important relationship. We examined how this relationship plays out across two United States ethnic groups that represent different contexts of oppression: Puerto Ricans, experiencing distal oppression (societal level) but not proximal oppression (immediate environment), and Latino Americans, experiencing both. We also captured individual beliefs regarding oppression of one's group and implications of that oppression by measuring oppressed minority ideology (OMI). Results confirmed our hypothesis that the relationship between reappraisal and psychological functioning would be moderated by the context of oppression (as measured by ethnic group membership and OMI). For Latino Americans high on OMI, reappraisal was negatively associated with psychological functioning. For Puerto Ricans, regardless of OMI, this relationship remained positive, suggesting a possible benefit for minorities in being surrounded by in-group members. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Sources of ethnic differences between Asian American and White American college students on measures of depression and social anxiety.

This study tested an affect-specific explanation for the Asian and White American differences in depression and social anxiety. Construal of the self as independent or interdependent in relation to others (H. R. Markus & S. Kitayama, see record 1991-23978-001) was hypothesized to be 1 possible way in which culture may be expressed in individuals' psychological functioning, which in turn was hypothesized to be linked specifically to social anxiety. College students (N?=?348; 183 White Americans and 165 Asian Americans) completed self-report measures of depression, social anxiety, and self-construals. Asian Americans scored significantly higher than White Americans on measures of depression and social anxiety. When the covariance between depression and social anxiety was statistically controlled, ethnicity and self-construal variables were found, as predicted, to be associated with measures of social anxiety but not depression. These findings suggest a more differentiated perspective on the relations between culture, ethnicity, and emotional distress. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Happiness and Chance: A Reappraisal of the Psychoanalytic Conception of Suffering.

Freud's allusion to the goal of analysis as that of transforming neurotic misery into common unhappiness implies that the outcome of treatment is not concerned with happiness but with the reduction of suffering. In fact, there is no single standard for happiness but many, some of which bear Freud's thesis out whereas others contradict it. The author examines Freud's views about happiness and compares them with other conceptions of it from antiquity that influenced Freud's distinction between pathological and ordinary suffering. It is argued that psychoanalysis is indeed concerned with the pursuit of happiness but is obliged to treat it in Zen-like fashion because of the typical analysand's resistance to enduring the sacrifices that the pursuit of happiness entails. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Attributions of mental illness and judgments about help seeking among Japanese-American and White American students.

Perceived causes of mental illness and help-seeking preferences among Japanese-American and White American college students (72 men and 72 women in each ethnic group) were compared in order to investigate the reported underuse of mental health services by Japanese Americans. Results of a 2 (ethnicity of S)?×?2(severity of disorder)?×?2(gender of person with disorder)?×?2(gender of S) multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) revealed that Japanese-American students were more likely than White American students to attribute mental illness to social causes, to resolve problems on their own, and to seek help from family members or friends or both. Possible barriers to use of services by this sample of Japanese Americans include both a preference for informal resources and the stigmatization of mental illness. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)