Cargando…

Two Sides of Emotion: Exploring Positivity and Negativity in Six Basic Emotions across Cultures

We employ a novel paradigm to test whether six basic emotions (sadness, fear, disgust, anger, surprise, and happiness; Ekman, 1992) contain both negativity and positivity, as opposed to consisting of a single continuum between negative and positive. We examined the perceived negativity and positivit...

Descripción completa

Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: An, Sieun, Ji, Li-Jun, Marks, Michael, Zhang, Zhiyong
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Frontiers Media S.A. 2017
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5397534/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28473791
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2017.00610
_version_ 1783230277220302848
author An, Sieun
Ji, Li-Jun
Marks, Michael
Zhang, Zhiyong
author_facet An, Sieun
Ji, Li-Jun
Marks, Michael
Zhang, Zhiyong
author_sort An, Sieun
collection PubMed
description We employ a novel paradigm to test whether six basic emotions (sadness, fear, disgust, anger, surprise, and happiness; Ekman, 1992) contain both negativity and positivity, as opposed to consisting of a single continuum between negative and positive. We examined the perceived negativity and positivity of these emotions in terms of their affective and cognitive components among Korean, Chinese, Canadian, and American students. Assessing each emotion at the cognitive and affective levels cross-culturally provides a fairly comprehensive picture of the positivity and negativity of emotions. Affective components were rated as more divergent than cognitive components. Cross-culturally, Americans and Canadians gave higher valence ratings to the salient valence of each emotion, and lower ratings to the non-salient valence of an emotion, compared to Chinese and Koreans. The results suggest that emotions encompass both positivity and negativity, and there were cross-cultural differences in reported emotions. This paradigm complements existing emotion theories, building on past research and allowing for more parsimonious explanations of cross-cultural research on emotion.
format Online
Article
Text
id pubmed-5397534
institution National Center for Biotechnology Information
language English
publishDate 2017
publisher Frontiers Media S.A.
record_format MEDLINE/PubMed
spelling pubmed-53975342017-05-04 Two Sides of Emotion: Exploring Positivity and Negativity in Six Basic Emotions across Cultures An, Sieun Ji, Li-Jun Marks, Michael Zhang, Zhiyong Front Psychol Psychology We employ a novel paradigm to test whether six basic emotions (sadness, fear, disgust, anger, surprise, and happiness; Ekman, 1992) contain both negativity and positivity, as opposed to consisting of a single continuum between negative and positive. We examined the perceived negativity and positivity of these emotions in terms of their affective and cognitive components among Korean, Chinese, Canadian, and American students. Assessing each emotion at the cognitive and affective levels cross-culturally provides a fairly comprehensive picture of the positivity and negativity of emotions. Affective components were rated as more divergent than cognitive components. Cross-culturally, Americans and Canadians gave higher valence ratings to the salient valence of each emotion, and lower ratings to the non-salient valence of an emotion, compared to Chinese and Koreans. The results suggest that emotions encompass both positivity and negativity, and there were cross-cultural differences in reported emotions. This paradigm complements existing emotion theories, building on past research and allowing for more parsimonious explanations of cross-cultural research on emotion. Frontiers Media S.A. 2017-04-20 /pmc/articles/PMC5397534/ /pubmed/28473791 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2017.00610 Text en Copyright © 2017 An, Ji, Marks and Zhang. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
spellingShingle Psychology
An, Sieun
Ji, Li-Jun
Marks, Michael
Zhang, Zhiyong
Two Sides of Emotion: Exploring Positivity and Negativity in Six Basic Emotions across Cultures
title Two Sides of Emotion: Exploring Positivity and Negativity in Six Basic Emotions across Cultures
title_full Two Sides of Emotion: Exploring Positivity and Negativity in Six Basic Emotions across Cultures
title_fullStr Two Sides of Emotion: Exploring Positivity and Negativity in Six Basic Emotions across Cultures
title_full_unstemmed Two Sides of Emotion: Exploring Positivity and Negativity in Six Basic Emotions across Cultures
title_short Two Sides of Emotion: Exploring Positivity and Negativity in Six Basic Emotions across Cultures
title_sort two sides of emotion: exploring positivity and negativity in six basic emotions across cultures
topic Psychology
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5397534/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28473791
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2017.00610
work_keys_str_mv AT ansieun twosidesofemotionexploringpositivityandnegativityinsixbasicemotionsacrosscultures
AT jilijun twosidesofemotionexploringpositivityandnegativityinsixbasicemotionsacrosscultures
AT marksmichael twosidesofemotionexploringpositivityandnegativityinsixbasicemotionsacrosscultures
AT zhangzhiyong twosidesofemotionexploringpositivityandnegativityinsixbasicemotionsacrosscultures