From behavior to brain to behavior : how cultural differences in ideal affect shape responses to smiles
Abstract/Contents
- Abstract
- Whether meeting a new colleague for the first time or exchanging pleasantries with a new neighbor, we often form an immediate impression about whether people are warm and friendly, which influences how we act towards them. We assume that those impressions are based on the other person, but across seven studies, I demonstrate that how we perceive and treat others is not only a reflection of the other person but also of our own culture and the emotions we value. In the following dissertation, I examine how cultural differences in the emotions people value and ideally want to feel (their "ideal affect") shape social judgments and the consequences of these judgments. In Studies 1-2, European Americans and Hong Kong Chinese viewed excited and calm smiling faces and rated them along a variety of dimensions. While both cultural groups rated excited smiling faces as more affiliative than calm smiling faces, European Americans rated excited (vs. calm) smiling faces as even more affiliative than Hong Kong Chinese. Further, these differences were mediated by the degree to which they valued excitement and other high arousal positive (HAP) states. Next, in Studies 3-4, I explored the neural underpinnings of these cultural differences. Consistent with valuing HAP more than their Chinese counterparts, European Americans showed greater nucleus accumbens activity to excited smiling faces than did Chinese. Moreover, nucleus accumbens activity was correlated with the intensity of friends' smiles on social media, demonstrating links to real-world behaviors. Finally, in Studies 5-7, I examined the role of deliberation in reducing the effects of ideal affect on responses to others, which has implications for future intervention. Together, these findings demonstrate that cultural differences in emotion powerfully influence our impressions of others, and that these impressions are associated with real-world relationships. This work has important implications for how culture and emotion might perpetuate unconscious biases towards individuals who express different emotional values.
Description
| Type of resource | text |
|---|---|
| Form | electronic resource; remote; computer; online resource |
| Extent | 1 online resource. |
| Place | California |
| Place | [Stanford, California] |
| Publisher | [Stanford University] |
| Copyright date | 2022; ©2022 |
| Publication date | 2022; 2022 |
| Issuance | monographic |
| Language | English |
Creators/Contributors
| Author | Blevins, Elizabeth Mary |
|---|---|
| Degree supervisor | Tsai, Jeanne Ling |
| Thesis advisor | Tsai, Jeanne Ling |
| Thesis advisor | Knutson, Brian |
| Thesis advisor | Markus, Hazel Rose |
| Thesis advisor | Zaki, Jamil, 1980- |
| Degree committee member | Knutson, Brian |
| Degree committee member | Markus, Hazel Rose |
| Degree committee member | Zaki, Jamil, 1980- |
| Associated with | Stanford University, Department of Psychology |
Subjects
| Genre | Theses |
|---|---|
| Genre | Text |
Bibliographic information
| Statement of responsibility | Elizabeth Mary Blevins. |
|---|---|
| Note | Submitted to the Department of Psychology. |
| Thesis | Thesis Ph.D. Stanford University 2022. |
| Location | https://purl.stanford.edu/sz728wy0942 |
Access conditions
- Copyright
- © 2022 by Elizabeth Mary Blevins
- License
- This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial 3.0 Unported license (CC BY-NC).
Also listed in
Loading usage metrics...