What is a compassionate face? Avoided negative affect explains differences between U.S. Americans and Chinese

Datos Bibliográficos

ID7149958
AutoresJia Hui Seow (Santa Clara University), Hongfei Du (0000-0002-9605-8463, Beijing Normal University at Zhuhai), Birgit Koopmann-Holm (0000-0002-0819-8862, Santa Clara University, autor de correspondencia)
Año2025
Volumen39
Número3
Páginas704-713
Fecha de publicación2025-04-03
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessNo
TipoARTICLE
RevistaCognition & Emotion (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 0269-9931 • E-ISSN: 1464-0600
EditorialInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/02699931.2024.2385708
PMID39176992
OpenAlexW4401823433
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas2
Referencias citadas37

While a compassionate face for Germans mirrors others' suffering, for U.S. Americans, a compassionate face is one that expresses a slight smile, partly because U.S. Americans want to avoid feeling negative ("avoided negative affect"; ANA) more than do Germans. The present work examines what people in a non-WEIRD (i.e. Chinese) cultural context think a compassionate face looks like. Additionally, it investigates whether an individually-measured cultural variable (i.e. ANA) can explain differences in conceptualisations of compassion between Chinese and U.S. Americans. Participants in China and the U.S. selected the face that most resembles a compassionate face in a reverse correlation task and completed a measure of ANA. As predicted, Chinese mental representations of a compassionate face included more sadness and less happiness compared to U.S. American mental representations of a compassionate face, and Chinese participants wanted to avoid feeling negative less than did U.S. Americans. Finally, ANA mediated the cultural differences in conceptualisations of compassion. We discuss how ANA and conceptualisations of compassion might be related to how people view the experience versus the expression of different emotions. This work has important implications for therapeutic settings and the meaning of compassion in an increasingly globalised and connected world

Developmental psychology · Linguistics · Communication · Cultural Differences and Values · Emotional Intelligence and Performance · Emotions and Moral Behavior · Psychology · Social Psychology