The role of social relationships and culture in the cognitive representation of emotions

Abstract

There are individual and cultural differences in how memories of our emotions are cognitively represented. This article examines the cognitive representation of emotions in different cultures, as a result of emotional (in)consistency in different cultures. Using a continuous semantic priming task, we showed in two studies that individuals who were less emotionally consistent across relationships have stronger associations of their emotions within those relationships. Further, we found (in Study 2) that in a culture characterised by higher levels of emotional inconsistency across relationships (Singapore), stronger associations between emotions within relationships were found than in a culture characterised by emotional consistency (USA). This cultural difference in cognitive representation was fully mediated by individual differences in cross-situational consistency levels.

Keywords:

• Emotion
• Culture
• Priming
• Self-concept
• Consistency

We thank William Tov and Jennifer Tong for insightful feedback on this project.

This research was funded in part by a grant from the Singapore Management University Office of Research [11-C242-SMU-009].

We thank William Tov and Jennifer Tong for insightful feedback on this project.

This research was funded in part by a grant from the Singapore Management University Office of Research [11-C242-SMU-009].

Notes

¹ Positively valenced emotion terms used were: Admiration, affection, bold, brave, cheerful, confident, delighted, eager, elated, energetic, enthusiastic, excited, glad, gratified, happy, inspired, interested, joyful, lively, loving, passionate, peaceful, pleasant, pleased, positive, proud, respect, strong, thrilled, worthy. Negatively valenced emotion terms used were: Afraid, agony, angry, annoyed, anxious, ashamed, bitter, blue, dejected, depressed, disappointed, distressed, down, fearful, frightened, gloomy, guilty, hostile, irritable, jittery, lonely, miserable, moody, nervous, regret, sad, scared, stressed, upset, worried.