Cross-cultural affective neuroscience personality comparisons of Japan, Turkey and Germany

Abstract

Mothering styles and family models of different cultures- that vary in interdependency and independency combinations—can influence the development of basic affects differently. The present study carried out the cross-cultural comparisons of samples from Japan, Turkey and Germany on self-construals, basic affects and Big Five factors. The countries were selected along a Euro-Asian spectrum, from highly collectivistic Japan to least collectivistic Germany, with Turkey as a bridging culture. The sample consisted of undergraduate and graduate students from Kyoto in Japan (n = 353), Istanbul in Turkey (n = 327) and Bonn in Germany (n = 222). The questionnaire included the self-construal scale (SCS), the affective neuroscience personality scales (ANPS) and the big five scale (B5S). SCS scores showed that the level of interdependent self-construals decreased from East to West, but independent self-construals did not gradually increase. Highest independency score was found in Turkey. Theoretically well-known German individualism was not found to be based on higher independency, but on lower interdependency. On ANPS, female groups seemed very similar on positive affects whereas for negative affects they had differences; like Japanese females had higher FEAR, Turkish females had higher ANGER. Similarly, Japanese males had higher FEAR and SADNESS, Turkish males had higher ANGER. On ANPS, Turkish and Japanese males were more similar and distinct from the German males who had lower scores almost on all affects. However on B5S; Turks and Germans were found to be quite similar and distinct from the Japanese. Turkey seemed to maintain more subcortical affective personality similarities with Japan, while attuning more to B5 factors displayed by Germany. Findings are discussed in light of child-rearing styles in each country.