Abstract
Sometimes people experience pleasant and unpleasant emotions at the same time in a single emotional event. Previous cross-cultural studies indicated that such mixed emotions are more prevalent in China and related to the attitudes toward happiness and individual’s regulatory motivation. However, China is a multi-ethnic country and not much is known about subcultural differences in mixed emotions. The aim of this study was to examine the role that implicit attitudes toward happiness and regulatory motivation played in regard of the subcultural differences in mixed emotions between Han (N = 61) and Mongolian Chinese (N = 46). Results indicated that, compared with Mongolian Chinese, Han Chinese showed stronger associations between implicit contra-hedonic attitudes toward happiness and mixed emotions during pleasant emotional events. Also, Han Chinese who reported contra-hedonic motivation during pleasant emotional events had higher levels of mixed emotions than those who had hedonic motivation. No significant differences were found in terms of mixed emotions between Mongolian Chinese who had contra-hedonic and hedonic motivation. These results suggest that the psychological mechanisms underlying differences in mixed emotions also require a more comprehensive understanding from a subcultural perspective.
Highlights
In the bipolar model of affect, unpleasant emotions are generally considered as the opposite of pleasant emotions (Larsen and Mcgraw, 2011)
We aimed to investigate the effects of implicit attitudes toward happiness and contra-hedonic motivation on the mixed emotions in pleasant emotional events from a subcultural perspective (i.e., Han vs. Mongolian Chinese)
We investigated whether Han Chinese and Mongolian Chinese differ in the implicit attitudes toward happiness
Summary
In the bipolar model of affect, unpleasant emotions are generally considered as the opposite of pleasant emotions (Larsen and Mcgraw, 2011). People generally experience only pleasant emotions when involved in a pleasant emotional event. An increasing number of cross-cultural studies indicated that people can experience pleasant and unpleasant emotions at the same time in various occasions (e.g., Larsen et al, 2001; Spencer-Rodgers et al, 2010). Happiness and sadness occur systematically with mixed affective cues (Hunter et al, 2008). Of note, such mixed emotions are more prevalent in East Asians (e.g., China, Spencer-Rodgers et al, 2010).
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