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Abstract
Studies suggest that emotional complexity—the experience of positive and negative emotion in response to the same event—is unusual in Western samples. However, recent research finds that the co-occurrence of positive and negative emotion during unstructured situations is more common among East Asians than Westerners, consistent with theories emphasising the prevalence of dialectical folk epistemology in East-Asian culture. The present study builds upon previous research by examining Asian- and European-Americans' experience of a particular positive emotion—love—and a situationally appropriate negative emotion during four structured laboratory conversations with their romantic partner. Among Asian Americans, love and the experience of negative emotion were typically less negatively correlated during these conversations than was true for European Americans.
Acknowledgements
The authors extend their gratitude to Kelly Strickler and Derek Powell for their hard work coding the couples' conversations; and to Helen Boucher, Eric Knowles, Maria Logli, Julie Spencer-Rodgers, Melissa Williams, and two anonymous reviewers for their comments on earlier drafts of this manuscript.