Department of Psychology, University of Michigan, Middletown, CT 06459, USA.
Emotion. 2011 Apr;11(2):329-45. doi: 10.1037/a0022855.
Appraisal theories of emotion propose that the emotions people experience correspond to their appraisals of their situation. In other words, individual differences in emotional experiences reflect differing interpretations of the situation. We hypothesized that in similar situations, people in individualist and collectivist cultures experience different emotions because of culturally divergent causal attributions for success and failure (i.e., agency appraisals). In a test of this hypothesis, American and Japanese participants recalled a personal experience (Study 1) or imagined themselves to be in a situation (Study 2) in which they succeeded or failed, and then reported their agency appraisals and emotions. Supporting our hypothesis, cultural differences in emotions corresponded to differences in attributions. For example, in success situations, Americans reported stronger self-agency emotions (e.g., proud) than did Japanese, whereas Japanese reported a stronger situation-agency emotion (lucky). Also, cultural differences in attribution and emotion were largely explained by differences in self-enhancing motivation. When Japanese and Americans were induced to make the same attribution (Study 2), cultural differences in emotions became either nonsignificant or were markedly reduced.
情绪评价理论认为，人们所经历的情绪与其对情境的评价相对应。换句话说，个体在情绪体验上的差异反映了对情境的不同解释。我们假设，在相似的情境中，由于对成功和失败的因果归因（即能动性评价）存在文化差异，个体主义和集体主义文化中的人会体验到不同的情绪。在对这一假设的检验中，美国和日本的参与者回忆了个人经历（研究 1）或想象自己处于成功或失败的情境中（研究 2），然后报告了他们的能动性评价和情绪。支持我们假设的是，情绪的文化差异与归因的差异相对应。例如，在成功情境中，美国人比日本人报告了更强的自我能动性情绪（如自豪），而日本人则报告了更强的情境能动性情绪（幸运）。此外，归因和情绪的文化差异在很大程度上可以用自我提升动机的差异来解释。当日本人和美国人被诱导做出相同的归因时（研究 2），情绪的文化差异要么变得不显著，要么明显减少。
