title: Desired emotions across cultures: A value-based account.
abstract: Values reflect how people want to experience the world; emotions reflect how people actually experience the world. Therefore, we propose that across cultures people desire emotions that are consistent with their values. Whereas prior research focused on the desirability of specific affective states or 1 or 2 target emotions, we offer a broader account of desired emotions. After reporting initial evidence for the potential causal effects of values on desired emotions in a preliminary study (N = 200), we tested the predictions of our proposed model in 8 samples (N = 2,328) from distinct world cultural regions. Across cultural samples, we found that people who endorsed values of self-transcendence (e.g., benevolence) wanted to feel more empathy and compassion, people who endorsed values of self-enhancement (e.g., power) wanted to feel more anger and pride, people who endorsed values of openness to change (e.g., self-direction) wanted to feel more interest and excitement, and people who endorsed values of conservation (e.g., tradition) wanted to feel more calmness and less fear. These patterns were independent of differences in emotional experience. We discuss the implications of our value-based account of desired emotions for understanding emotion regulation, culture, and other individual differences. (PsycINFO Database Record
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology.
authors.forename: Maya
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Tamir
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology.
authors.forename: Shalom H
authors.initials: SH
authors.lastname: Schwartz
authors.affiliation: Institute of Psychology, Cardinal Stefan Wyszynski University.
authors.forename: Jan
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Cieciuch
authors.affiliation: Max Planck Institute for Human Development.
authors.forename: Michaela
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Riediger
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Brasilia.
authors.forename: Claudio
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Torres
authors.affiliation: School of Social Sciences, Singapore Management University.
authors.forename: Christie
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Scollon
authors.affiliation: Department of African American Studies, Virginia Commonwealth University.
authors.forename: Vivian
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Dzokoto
authors.affiliation: Department of Management, Shanghai Normal University.
authors.forename: Xiaolu
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Zhou
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology.
authors.forename: Allon
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Vishkin
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D003431:Cross-Cultural Comparison; D003469:Culture; D004644:Emotions; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D012945:Social Values; D055815:Young Adult