Interdependent Self-Construal Moderates Relationships Between Positive Emotion and Quality in Social Interactions: A Case of Person to Culture Fit.

Konstantinos G Kafetsios

doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2019.00914

Konstantinos G Kafetsios

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2019.00914

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Abstract

How emotion is experienced and expressed in social encounters can very much depend on a person’s cultural orientation and the two can affect the quality of social relationships. The present research examined how an interaction between cultural orientation (person) and emotion in social encounters (situation) can influence social interaction outcomes and by extent, cultural fit. For a period of seven days, participants (N = 164) reported eight positive and eight negative emotions they experienced in naturally occurring social encounters together with indicators of quality of social interaction (satisfaction, attending to the other, perceiving others as emotionally more positive). Results from multilevel random coefficient analyses found that self-construal, interdependence in particular, moderated relationships between positive emotion and social interaction quality. At high levels of positive emotion, higher, compared to lower, interdependence was associated with lower attention to other and lower satisfaction with the encounter. At low levels of positive emotion, higher interdependence was associated with higher social interaction quality than persons lower in interdependence. These effects were more robust when social anxiety was controlled, and social anxiety was highly correlated with participants’ interdependent orientation. The results support socially situated accounts to emotion and cultural constructions of the self, and depict emotion in social interaction as an important indicator of cultural fit.

Highlights

The emotions people experience and express in their day to day encounters are important for their well-being and life-satisfaction
The present study meaningfully extends this research by looking at how emotion, especially positive emotion, can shape the quality of social interaction as a function of people’s self-construal and culture’s central cultural mandate
Independent self-construal was negatively correlated with Social anxiety, r(165) = −0.31, p < 0.001 and interdependent self-construal was positively correlated to social anxiety, r(165) = 0.41, p < 0.001

Summary

Introduction

The emotions people experience and express in their day to day encounters are important for their well-being and life-satisfaction. This is especially the case with regard to positive emotion: sharing positive feelings with social acquaintances, friends, and partners can critically shape wellbeing (Gable et al, 2004; Lambert et al, 2013). Culture-related norms and scripts regarding how relationships are enacted can regulate the emotional experience in people’s social exchanges (Kim et al, 2008). The present study meaningfully extends this research by looking at how emotion, especially positive emotion, can shape the quality of social interaction as a function of people’s self-construal and culture’s central cultural mandate

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