w1 - Culture and happiness Flashcards
What is the East vs. West paradox?
While people from East Asian cultures self report higher levels of negative emotions than western, this flips when using one-on-one psychiatric surveys
structured interviews
List one possible reason for the east/west divide on mental health
Cultural differences affect how we perceive the world f
Name one dividing descriptor between the east/west.
Individualism v. collectivism
List some factors of a independent self construal.
- Seperate from social contexts
- Inernal, private
- Bounded, unitary
List some factors of a interdependent self construal.
- Socially connected
- Flexible
- External, public
What difference does the ‘role of others’ play between independent and interdependent self?
independent: self-evaluation, others are important for comparison
interdependent: self-definition, relationships in specific contexts defines self
What is the basis of self-esteem between independent v. interdependent?
Independent: ability to express self, validate internal attributes
interdependent: ability to adjust, restrain self, maintain harmony with social context
Describe continunity (Chinese) and discreteness (Greek)
Continuity: world as a collection of overlapping and interpenetrating things
Discreteness: world as a collection of discrete objects that ‘have’ properties
What are some implication for having an interdependent view of the world?
Eastern
- Allows contradictions
- Change expected
- Focus on the context
What are some implication for having an independent view of the world?
- Avoid contradition (things are seperate)
- Expect continuity
- Focus on individual
What is naïve dialecticism?
A lay belief that guides East-Asain thought.
An expression of dialectical thinking: possibility of two contradictory arguments being true (chinese)
As opposed to formal logic
What is formal logic?
And formal logic: ‘if one is true the other must be false’ (american/western)
As opposed to naive dialectisicm
What is an example of priming culture?
How symbols (eg. Yin/Yang) can prime the expectations of a culture
example : priming american’s with symbols decreased their likelihood to reinvest / symbols represent change and flux
What is object-focused and contextualised attention?
Japanese cultures recognised previously perceived objects if they appeared in their same context
American’s saw no difference in recall ability between same or different context
context = background in study
Psychologically, what does an acceptance of contradiction allow for an individual?
dialectical thinkers
- different emotions are able to co-exist (reduces primaitising pos’ emotion)
- reduces effort to regulate pos and dow reg neg’ emotion
- more like to experience mixed emotions
What are some of the outcomes from accepting that emotions change
- Increased perceive self-efficacy to regulate emotions
- Reduction of perceived threat of neg’ emotions (less struggle)
What are some of the implications for internalising that emotions can be casued by ones context?
- Allows for increased self distancing / not taking things personally
- greater ability for flexibility in emotional regulation stratergies
Why could thinking about yourself as part of a wider context decrease depression?
One could reflect on their depression as:
1. I’m a depressed person (individual)
2. I’m a person in broder situation experiencing depression
What is one predictor of higher negative emotion in a country that prioritises happiness?
Having an already high level of neg’ emotion is increased when ones context locates happiness as the goal
What is SEDAS and what does it speak to?
Social Expectancies for Depression Anxiety Scale.
Results speak the pressure to stay happy having an inverse affect.
What did the daily dairy study show about negative emotion?
That higher SEDAS scores on any given day correlated with higher recordings of negative emotion.
What did priming subjects with the expectation of happiness induce?
People who failed in the happy primed room ruminated more on task failiure than those in the non-primed room
Other than culture, what is an ecological factor than can impact happiness?
Income inequality.
- less trust
- perceived trust
